On November 29, General Asim Munir, Pakistan Army chief, completes one year of tumultuous events, conspiracies and failures on many fronts.
The General’s failures are more apparent than any successes, a clear indication that his troubles within and outside the army are far from over.
Read a detailed analysis in TPMM Issue Brief
His single most failure has been to stem the tide of terrorism that has kept the country’s western border on fire since he took over. Several hundred security personnel, including soldiers and officers, have fallen victim to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), once an ally which has turned into a ferocious adversary with the help of its patron, the Afghan Taliban.
The militant group, armed with modern weapons and instruments abandoned by the US forces in Afghanistan, has been targeting strategic locations since November last year when it unilaterally called off the truce brokered by the army. The group’s guerilla war against the army has been ferocious, carrying out cross-border attacks, suicide bombings targeting army vehicles and posts, sporadic but consistent attacks on police stations and checkposts along the critical CPEC highway. The attack on the Pakistan Air Force’s Mianwali air base in Punjab, early November, underlined the colossal failure of the army to preempt such attacks despite countless Intelligence Based Operations.
The failure to deter TTP comes with another significant problem–the collapse of the much-blooded Strategic Depth doctrine. More specifically, General Asim Munir has failed to keep the army’s traditional ally, the Taliban, on the same page. His inability to bring around the Taliban, a militant force which till last year was considered a close ally, is costing the country a heavy price in terms of lives lost and a high-level of threat which, in turn, makes foreign investments, including the Chinese, prone to frequent and disabling disruptions.
General Munir’s solution to force the Taliban to come around to his terms has been to throw out millions of Afghans from Pakistan. It is not only a major and catastrophic human tragedy but will also cost Pakistan heavily in terms of security on its western borders. The Afghan people always nursed a strong dislike for Pakistanis although their leadership might have been playing the great game. With millions forced to return to a country which many do not consider home, the animosity against Pakistan is bound to multiply. The Taliabn leadership is playing its own game with Pakistan, using the Pakistan Army’s playbook in dealing with terrorist groups like TTP. The Taliban fears that Pakistan was helping anti-Taliban groups like Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) to find a sanctuary in Afghanistan-Pakistan borders. The heightened threat to Pakistan on the western borders is caused largely by General Munir’s own weaknesses, internal feud within the army and the inevitable revival of a new great game in the region.
The Afghan-Taliban problem of the army is the outcome of a feuding leadership within GHQ and successive weak and ineffective civilian governments. When General Munir took over the reins, the army was a deeply divided house. The army was split on political lines, with a large number of Generals and soldiers openly supporting the ousted Prime Minister, Imran Khan. General Qamar Javed Bajwa, General Munir’s predecessor, and his ISI chief, Lt. General Faiz Hameed, were seen as manipulators. General Munir was surrounded by Bajwa and Hameed’s men. He could have removed them, either forced them to resign or to transfer them to insignificant posts. He failed to do so and this resulted in the May 9,2023 mutiny attempt where mobs torched the Lahore Corps Commander’s house and attacked the GHQ, unprecedented acts in the annals of the powerful and omniscient military force.
It took almost one year before General Munir could make some real moves within GHQ, bringing a confidante to the critical post of Chief of General Staff. The transfer of the Bajwa appointee, Lt. General Abdul Ghafoor to National Defence University, Islamabad, from Peshawar was another significant move. The failure of Ghafoor as the Peshawar Corps Commander to deal with TTP and Afghan Taliban was clear for several months.
Likewise, the short extension of ISI chief, Lt. General Nadeem Anjum, another Bajwa favourite, early this year indicated General Munir’s difficulties in bringing his confidantes to the inner sanctorum of GHQ. His inability could be that he had few confidantes among the three-star ranks and he wanted Anjum to remain in place to oversee the elections scheduled for February 2024. Despite these compulsions, General Munir’s vacillation to effect a decisive change among the top leadership of the army exposed his nervousness in rocking the boat. The threat of a coup against him was real. It still is–much depends on the outcome of the elections.