Islamabad: After months of denying the existence of the Islamic State in Pakistan, federal authorities seem to have finally accepted that the Middle Eastern terrorist outfit is gaining a foothold in the country.
According to a list of militant outfits proscribed by the interior ministry, the IS group – also known by its Arabic acronym of Da’ish – was banned in July. The country’s security czar shared the list in parliament last week.
Considering the official stance, the government has banned Da’ish without the group’s presence in the country. The list shows the outfit was proscribed on July 15, making it the only one banned in the aftermath of the APS Peshawar massacre of December last year.
The last group to be banned was the Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz on March 15, 2013. On the other hand, the Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaatud Dawa happens to be under observation since December 1, 2005.
So has the government finally acknowledged the presence of the militant outfit by banning it? “This is contradictory to the previous statements of the government that IS does not exist in Pakistan, or it is not operating in Pakistan,” said Ashraf Jahangir Qazi, former ambassador to the US and former head of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. “The government issues contradictory statements all the time. So there is nothing new here.”
Or, he added, it is not necessary the militant group had been operating in the country, and the government may just be echoing the narrative of the US.
“This is a straight-forward regional, sectarian fight with one of the richest countries supporting all the Sunni extremists and then Iran, on the other hand, supporting the others,” Ashraf said. “This is their fight, and it has reached Pakistan, and we follow what we are told whether it’s consistent or not.”
Maintaining its official stance, the Foreign Office has repeatedly stated that Da’ish has no footprint in the country, despite reports that some local militant groups have already aligned themselves with the terrorist group, establishing a self-styled caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
According to some security officials, banning IS was a pre-emptive measure to deny the militant group any space in the country. Under the National Action Plan, the government has been monitoring the activities and movements of criminal organizations. The measures include barring the public appearance of militant leaders and the re-emergence of banned outfits under new names.
On August 4, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif constituted a committee to oversee the implementation of sanctions against designated terrorists under the UN Security Council resolutions. A ban exists on the media coverage of criminal organizations and individuals.
