Taliban's coming war against journalists

Over the years, the TTP eliminated the tribal leadership. Now, it appears to have arrived at a similar strategy with regard to the Pakistani media, considering it as an armed front in a war against Islam and deciding to eliminate liberal journalists, at least those who are vocal against the Taliban

For two successive years, in 2010 and 2011, Pakistan was declared as the most dangerous country to work for journalists – both by the New York-based Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ) and the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Six Pakistani journalists were killed in 2010 and seven in 2011, including investigative reporter Syed Saleem Shahzad who is believed to have been picked up by Pakistan's dreaded Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and shot dead for revealing jihadi forces' stronghold in the Pakistani military. Now, a Taliban pamphlet, justifying the October 9 militant attack on liberal Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, offers insights into how the jihadi forces are broadening the sphere of war to include reporters and television presenters in its ambit.

Issued jointly by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the pamphlet is titled "Aqeedon ka Tasadum" (Clash of Faiths) and is aimed at countering the upsurge of popular support in Pakistan for Malala. The key point about this document is that it re-imagines the nature of war in terms of media's role in contemporary times; and it considers media persons as armed combatants. While a media front in the war of ideas should mean that the Taliban respond to arguments, the pamphlet indicates that the militants plan to use bombs and guns to silence the liberal Pakistani media. It engenders a critical situation in Pakistan where it is already difficult for journalists and liberal activists to state their viewpoints in public space.

The TTP-IMU pamphlet poses a question: "was Malala unarmed?" It responds: "In present times, the media has taken the shape of a dangerous weapon. Language is used in media and its wounds are more fatal than the wounds of spears. The pen is used, whose blade is sharper than a sword." In the Taliban's reckoning, Malala is an armed media practitioner engaged in a war of ideas against Islam. This writer worked at the BBC's Urdu Service when Malala began writing her anonymous online diary, exposing how the Taliban militants were enforcing Islamic shari'a rule in Pakistan's Swat region in early 2009. At that time, the BBC's Urdu website was opening, like other online media groups, its online space to readers to articulate their views on current affairs and set the news agenda. Like Malala's, hundreds of online diaries written by readers were published on the BBC Urdu website. There was nothing specific to Malala's diaries.

However, the Taliban think that Malala's diaries were aimed at defaming Islam. "Those who say that she was barehanded and unarmed are trying," the pamphlet notes, "to hoodwink the people. Malala was fighting against the Taliban with words and pen." In the past few years, various Taliban commanders have threatened journalists to exert pressure or over the issues of fairness and disputes about casualty figures. However, the pamphlet indicates that the Taliban are now considering pen and ink as weapons. It also means that in coming days liberal activists in Pakistan and journalists will encounter serious threats to life (the assassinations of Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti are still fresh in our minds) – also because the Taliban and other jihadist forces are set to be strengthened by 2014, when the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan.

According to the CPJ, 46 journalists have been killed in Pakistan since 1992, 26 of them being murdered with the culprits enjoying impunity from prosecution. Throughout Pakistan, journalists face threats from various quarters: from the sectarian outfits like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ); from the country's spy agencies such as the ISI, especially in Baluchistan; from the Taliban and other jihadi organizations in the tribal region; and from political parties across the nation. But fatal attacks on Pakistani journalists have originated mainly from political groups in the recent past. Speaking at a September 27 seminar in Washington DC, CJP's Asia Program Director Bob Dietz remarked: "If you are a journalist in Pakistan, it is more dangerous to cover politics [than war]."

Speaking at the same seminar, Awais Saleem, a journalist with the Dunya News of Pakistan, remarked that more than 50 percent of journalists killed in Pakistan in recent years were targeted for covering political issues. A July 19, 2012 report by the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) of the Washington DC-based National Endowment for Democracy summed up the situation in Pakistan: "Media workers have been kidnapped, tortured, and beaten to death for delving into the nation's potent military apparatus and spy agencies. Bodies have been found with throats slit and flesh punctured with electric drills by Islamic militants, political extremists, and gangsters who take umbrage at what they write."

On October 14, an intelligence assessment prepared by the National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) of the Pakistani interior ministry, was sent to the security agencies across Pakistan, warning that TTP Emir Hakimullah Mehsud has compiled a list of targets and has directed the Taliban fighters to launch attacks against Pakistani and international media organizations in the country. It is believed that several top journalists and television presenters in Pakistan are on the target. This marks a turning point in the TTP's thinking that media is a battlefront. Among all the Pakistani jihadi groups, it is perhaps only the TTP that does not have a dedicated media outlet while statements by its commanders are released through Al-Qaeda's jihadi internet forums. The 9-page TTP-IMU pamphlet sent as a PDF attachment to journalists in Pakistan and also released through Yahoo groups in the wake of the Malala attack, reveals the new TTP strategy, aimed at subjugating Pakistan's independent media and liberal voices.

Should Pakistani journalists and liberal advocates worry? The answer is yes. In the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATAs) of Pakistan, where the TTP began creating space for itself in the years after 9/11, it began doing so by target-killing the maliks (tribal elders), who formed the basis of decision-making in the tribal society. Over the years, the TTP eliminated the tribal leadership. Now, it appears to have arrived at a similar strategy with regard to the Pakistani media, considering it as an armed front in a war against Islam and deciding to eliminate liberal journalists, at least those who are vocal against the Taliban and other jihadist forces. In this new Taliban strategy, even the nib of a pen is a weapon and is to be targeted. The pamphlet clarifies: "war is fought in three ways – firstly, by hands; secondly, through tongue and the nib of a pen is included in it; and thirdly, by wealth."