Testing closed system theory on Taliban do they need foreign money?

[jaibi]

Their commanders are well paid, but the vacation bit is slightly difficult unless they head out from Iran or Afghanistan. The everyday grinder is paid only slightly less than a PA soldier; but his kit comprises of a basic equipment vest, his shawl, a nestle bottle of water and his gun. On these he is technically autonomous for two to three weeks easy. I agree that the network is shifting since there was a crackdown on the inflow of funds since 2007, which has led the organizations to focus on the criminal network for making up for the reduction in external funding. What is important to observe is to identify individual networks. The TTP may be trying to get on the same financial "institution" that provides for other organizations such as LeJ, Let etc.. but the current spate of kidnappings and extortion suggest that they are still less financed by donations and more by criminal activities.

In other words, a further in depth look by someone following your initial endeavour should look at differentiating the financial streams of each of these organizations.

I agree, sir, that was my original aim however the data was not accessible. I had lodged a request to the Anti-Narcotics and FBR for some reports and was turned down. Same with the Pak army though my friends and family has served in the military so I used that to meet a few people but the data was strictly 'off record' and thus hard to verify. Given enough transpiracy it can be done.

 

[jaibi]

Sir our government should stop following USA orders and implement Islam completely other wise these Madrassas would remain strong and powerful

That is not the problem and not the solution, Zarvan.

 

[Armstrong]

@jaibi - Good Job....it seems to be meticulously researched & is well written !

I, unfortunately, don't know what to make of it for I've serious reservations about attaching any kind of quantitative assertion to an otherwise very little known about, in terms of its internal workings, organization which, according to many, is far from being a monolithic entity & is an umbrella organization or even, perhaps, a series of umbrella organizations with considerable independence & differential, in terms of their internal dynamics, between its many varied groups, sub groups & even splintered & perhaps sleeper cells.

I would imagine that more than anything else they've gone for Portfolio Diversification at an elemental level whereby everything from stakes in legitimate businesses to funding from charitable institutions, almost exclusively of a religious kind, with narcotics to foreign funding & kidnapping for ransom to significant....significant public support for them, that often materializes itself in monetary terms, is the real reason why despite repeated operations we have not been able to end or even significantly diminish their source of funding.

That said I do believe that their significant penetration of our society is their real strength both in monetary terms & much more so in absolutely qualitative terms like a TTP foot soldier melting back into the same gullies & walkways he came from. What, I believe, we also need to account for is that whereas a Pakistani Army Soldier is both in relatively 'unknown lands' & has to have 'logistical arms' of the Armed Forces sustaining him, his counterparts in the TTP almost always finds shelter, sustenance, replenishment & sanctuary in every town, city or village !

The aforementioned unsaid & unaccounted quantum is probably the most important factor in why the TTP never run out of money & why do they always have something up their sleeve !

 

[Marwat Khan Lodhi]

Yaara not here. Ignore the troll baits or inflammatory posts. The OP has put in some rather quality work in this piece. Let it remain free of floating swine.
@Secur @Armstrong How much money did it take again for the TTP to finance their last jail break, could we extrapolate upon that figure to reach some rough calculations on the quantum of funds required for even more dramatic attacks like the one on the GHQ?
@jaibi On an average what would be the number of active cadre in the TTP/Taliban? Any idea anyone?

4 to 7 thousands at best, and i am talking about all factions of TTP. After loss of swat and south waziristan they are not governing any particular area so they have reduced themeselves to small but swift guerrella insurgent group. They operate in small number, avoid pitched battles and rely on surprise attacks, hit and run tactics. For that reason it is difficult to defeat them now, if you start a huge military operation against them, they would simply disperse and you would be chasing the shadows.

 

[jaibi]

@jaibi - Good Job....it seems to be meticulously researched & is well written !

I, unfortunately, don't know what to make of it for I've serious reservations about attaching any kind of quantitative assertion to an otherwise very little known about, in terms of its internal workings, organization which, according to many, is far from being a monolithic entity & is an umbrella organization or even, perhaps, a series of umbrella organizations with considerable independence & differential, in terms of their internal dynamics, between its many varied groups, sub groups & even splintered & perhaps sleeper cells.

I would imagine that more than anything else they've gone for Portfolio Diversification at an elemental level whereby everything from stakes in legitimate businesses to funding from charitable institutions, almost exclusively of a religious kind, with narcotics to foreign funding & kidnapping for ransom to significant....significant public support for them, that often materializes itself in monetary terms, is the real reason why despite repeated operations we have not been able to end or even significantly diminish their source of funding.

That said I do believe that their significant penetration of our society is their real strength both in monetary terms & much more so in absolutely qualitative terms like a TTP foot soldier melting back into the same gullies & walkways he came from. What, I believe, we also need to account for is that whereas a Pakistani Army Soldier is both in relatively 'unknown lands' & has to have 'logistical arms' of the Armed Forces sustaining him, his counterparts in the TTP almost always finds shelter, sustenance, replenishment & sanctuary in every town, city or village !

The aforementioned unsaid & unaccounted quantum is probably the most important factor in why the TTP never run out of money & why do they always have something up their sleeve !

I totally agree with you, Arm, quantifying them is hard but not impossible if there is a revelation of enough data it can be done but sadly most of it is classified I tried to uncover some. THat being said the main aim of presenting and researching this piece was to give some credibility to this view that these guys can operate on their own.

I absolutley agree that the support they get from our society is why we cannot weed them out but it is also because we have not been able to extend the arm of governance upon them and that too remains a large problem.

 

[jaibi]

4 to 7 thousands at best, and i am talking about all factions of TTP. After loss of swat and south waziristan they are not governing any particular area so they have reduced themeselves to small but swift guerrella insurgent group. They operate in small number, avoid pitched battles and rely on surprise attacks, hit and run tactics. For that reason it is difficult to defeat them now, if you start a huge military operation against them, they would simply disperse and you would be chasing the shadows.

Hey, Pak-one, how have you been?

I would agree with him as the latest reports that I have are from 2008-10, Pak lives in the affected areas so might have it better pinpointed than me.

 

[[Bregs]]

extremely well thought and immaculately put forward article. a welcome thread indeed

 

[Marwat Khan Lodhi]

Hey, Pak-one, how have you been?

I would agree with him as the latest reports that I have are from 2008-10, Pak lives in the affected areas so might have it better pinpointed than me.

Alhamdulilah me fine, how are you brother?
Your article went above my head, as i am very nalaiq in concepts of economics but i get the idea.

 

[Armstrong]

I totally agree with you, Arm, quantifying them is hard but not impossible if there is a revelation of enough data it can be done but sadly most of it is classified I tried to uncover some. THat being said the main aim of presenting and researching this piece was to give some credibility to this view that these guys can operate on their own.

I absolutley agree that the support they get from our society is why we cannot weed them out but it is also because we have not been able to extend the arm of governance upon them and that too remains a large problem.

Personally my own assessment is that the reason why we're not able to control the TTP or, in other words, win this war is because we lack the 3 things that, in my humble opinion, are needed to win any such war : Credibility, Capability & Deterrence !

We don't have any of the three !

When it comes to Credibility - Every State Institution of Pakistan including the Armed Forces, the bureaucracy & the Political Class have their credibility down in the dumps.

Just stop the odd guy on the street & it wouldn't be fantastic if it turns that he thinks that they - the lot of them - are pathological liars minting money till their hearts content ! And the 'lot of them' truly includes everyone !

I've come across people more than once who've said 'Yeh tou ISI subb kuch khudd karvaa rahiii haiii....dhamakeiii wagheraaa' ! And to a considerably greater extent - If the Army didn't feel like doing the Afghanistan Fiasco & a myriad of other things - We wouldn't be in this mess !

I'm sure all of us have heard the nasty words that our general public has for our Politicians & Bureaucrats alike needless to say I or anyone else doesn't need convincing in knowing that the average Joe & Jane on the street have a very low opinion of our Civil Servants or our Politicians.

Now I won't for a second say that all of the above is true for in case of the Army I don't believe the former & I think that latter should be understood in a particular context one that we don't need to talk about right now !

What we need to understand, on the other hand, is that the Credibility of those Charged with Governance, of those Elected by the People & those who we know, collectively, as State Institutions is truly at an all time low & so no one is going trust them !

In the absence of trust, narratives are born & if that narrative is not yours then the one to whom its ownership belongs to would shape public opinion & public perception accordingly hence why you find more than just the 'odd one out' from amongst our people who think that either the Army is behind all of our current mess (in one way or the other) or that this is fair comeuppance for joining the War on Terror ! No matter how irrational those view points might be - They exist & are very widespread ! Naturally people are a lot...lot more amenable towards accepting the alternative narrative especially if it comes from some religious authority for a passion evoking thing like religion in an already somewhat intolerant & uneducated society has an exponentially stronger bargaining power or sticking power than otherwise.

Which brings us to Capability ! I think none of us need an obscene amount of convincing to know that our Civilian Security Apparatus is ill-equipped, ill-trained & ill-motivated along with being heavily politicized that they do not have the Capacity to fight this war even if they are absolutely the 'right people', in terms of their Role, to fight this War ! Because after all this is first & foremost a Policing Issue & then a Paramilitary Issue - The Army, ideally, should never have come into the Picture !

That said the Army did come into the Picture because no one else was up to the task ! Now be that as it maybe, I think, an honest assessment of the Army would tell us that it too does not have the Capacity of fighting such an Un-conventional War ! And even though it has come leaps & bounds since this mess started....it remains, primarily, a Conventional Force that had to relearn & redesign herself in a myriad ways to fight this Low-Intensity-Conflict & the shortcomings that differential presents are for all to see even if the Army has performed admirably in the given circumstances !

And lastly we've got Deterrence ! Without any changes in Laws, the capacity that was talked about in the aforementioned paragraph or the credibility in the one before that - How in god's name would one have a Deterrent against a People we weren't able to effectively & efficiently manage to begin with ?

Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that just because the TTP have dispersed & have gone to Afghanistan & perhaps percolated into areas in the rest of the country - We've broken them !

We haven't ! This is a very long, arduous & bloody conflict & I don't see an end to it in the near future !

 

[jaibi]

extremely well thought and immaculately put forward article. a welcome thread indeed

Thank you for reading it, sir, I appreciate your feedback.

Alhamdulilah me fine, how are you brother?
Your article went above my head, as i am very nalaiq in concepts of economics but i get the idea.

Glad to know you're doing well, brother, I'm fine as well, Alhamdulilah, just completed my degree (B.Sc. Hons.) so enjoying the little off time I have. I'm glad you read the article, your input is really needed, Pak, as you live in the affected areas and know of the people involved well. Thanks again!

 

[jaibi]

Personally my own assessment is that the reason why we're not able to control the TTP or, in other words, win this war is because we lack the 3 things that, in my humble opinion, are needed to win any such war : Credibility, Capability & Deterrence !

We don't have any of the three !

When it comes to Credibility - Every State Institution of Pakistan including the Armed Forces, the bureaucracy & the Political Class have their credibility down in the dumps.

Just stop the odd guy on the street & it wouldn't be fantastic if it turns that he thinks that they - the lot of them - are pathological liars minting money till their hearts content ! And the 'lot of them' truly includes everyone !

I've come across people more than once who've said 'Yeh tou ISI subb kuch khudd karvaa rahiii haiii....dhamakeiii wagheraaa' ! And to a considerably greater extent - If the Army didn't feel like doing the Afghanistan Fiasco & a myriad of other things - We wouldn't be in this mess !

I'm sure all of us have heard the nasty words that our general public has for our Politicians & Bureaucrats alike needless to say I or anyone else doesn't need convincing in knowing that the average Joe & Jane on the street have a very low opinion of our Civil Servants or our Politicians.

Now I won't for a second say that all of the above is true for in case of the Army I don't believe the former & I think that latter should be understood in a particular context one that we don't need to talk about right now !

What we need to understand, on the other hand, is that the Credibility of those Charged with Governance, of those Elected by the People & those who we know, collectively, as State Institutions is truly at an all time low & so no one is going trust them !

In the absence of trust, narratives are born & if that narrative is not yours then the one to whom its ownership belongs to would shape public opinion & public perception accordingly hence why you find more than just the 'odd one out' from amongst our people who think that either the Army is behind all of our current mess (in one way or the other) or that this is fair comeuppance for joining the War on Terror ! No matter how irrational those view points might be - They exist & are very widespread ! Naturally people are a lot...lot more amenable towards accepting the alternative narrative especially if it comes from some religious authority for a passion evoking thing like religion in an already somewhat intolerant & uneducated society has an exponentially stronger bargaining power or sticking power than otherwise.

Which brings us to Capability ! I think none of us need an obscene amount of convincing to know that our Civilian Security Apparatus is ill-equipped, ill-trained & ill-motivated along with being heavily politicized that they do not have the Capacity to fight this war even if they are absolutely the 'right people', in terms of their Role, to fight this War ! Because after all this is first & foremost a Policing Issue & then a Paramilitary Issue - The Army, ideally, should never have come into the Picture !

That said the Army did come into the Picture because no one else was up to the task ! Now be that as it maybe, I think, an honest assessment of the Army would tell us that it too does not have the Capacity of fighting such an Un-conventional War ! And even though it has come leaps & bounds since this mess started....it remains, primarily, a Conventional Force that had to relearn & redesign herself in a myriad ways to fight this Low-Intensity-Conflict & the shortcomings that differential presents are for all to see even if the Army has performed admirably in the given circumstances !

And lastly we've got Deterrence ! Without any changes in Laws, the capacity that was talked about in the aforementioned paragraph or the credibility in the one before that - How in god's name would one have a Deterrent against a People we weren't able to effectively & efficiently manage to begin with ?

Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that just because the TTP have dispersed & have gone to Afghanistan & perhaps percolated into areas in the rest of the country - We've broken them !

We haven't ! This is a very long, arduous & bloody conflict & I don't see an end to it in the near future !

Arm, you've hit on the red ot metal perfectly! I agree with the points that you have illuminated and these problems of alternative metanarratives, if you will, is not just the reason for our security dilemma but also our political ones. However, Arm, I've seen that despite repeatedly arguing so and trying to show the people this picture they are still not convinced. Perhaps because our resoning in terms of governance has not evolved much we still think like the inefficent 20th century governments of holding the cities and allowing the free run of our territories as long as it doesn't bother us. THat has to go and in my view it would be done by empirically presenting such information over and over again to our policy makers and hope they understand.

Secondly, we also need to actively engage people who view the Talibs as not all bad or Muslim brethern we cannot argue that there is sympathy for them and this again is because they have played into the fractures (law, social, political) that our society has. Now to combat them we need to combat these fissures as like a disease they fester on our wounds. So for us to have Deterrence, Capability and most importantly Credibility we need to trust our people and reveal the true picture to them. This can be done by facts, I mean people like Hamid Mir, Luqman etc., basically feed upon the lapse in information that we have and thus this mistrust of all and the 'great game' we have keeps on being reinforced.

Great post btw, Arm, enjoyed reading it and seeing that my views have resonance.

 

[Armstrong]

Arm, you've hit on the red ot metal perfectly! I agree with the points that you have illuminated and these problems of alternative metanarratives, if you will, is not just the reason for our security dilemma but also our political ones. However, Arm, I've seen that despite repeatedly arguing so and trying to show the people this picture they are still not convinced. Perhaps because our resoning in terms of governance has not evolved much we still think like the inefficent 20th century governments of holding the cities and allowing the free run of our territories as long as it doesn't bother us. THat has to go and in my view it would be done by empirically presenting such information over and over again to our policy makers and hope they understand.

Secondly, we also need to actively engage people who view the Talibs as not all bad or Muslim brethern we cannot argue that there is sympathy for them and this again is because they have played into the fractures (law, social, political) that our society has. Now to combat them we need to combat these fissures as like a disease they fester on our wounds. So for us to have Deterrence, Capability and most importantly Credibility we need to trust our people and reveal the true picture to them. This can be done by facts, I mean people like Hamid Mir, Luqman etc., basically feed upon the lapse in information that we have and thus this mistrust of all and the 'great game' we have keeps on being reinforced.

Great post btw, Arm, enjoyed reading it and seeing that my views have resonance.

Thank You !

But to be brutally honest, I don't see that happening !

Our own People don't trust us & our ability to manage Perception is a skill that we know next to nothing about & more so we criminally assume that it doesn't matter - Just look to '47, '48, '65, '71, the Afghan Jihad, Siachin, Kargil etc. etc. etc. - Better nations have spun admirable stories out of more testing events to their advantage !

We can't & we don't want to ! I don't see any active appreciation of 'Perception Management & Counter Propaganda' in our Military Top Brass or our Civilian Executive - Their approach, as I've understood it to be, 'Koi mantaa haii tou maneiii warnaaa bhaaaar meee jaiii...!'

I say learn from India, Israel, US & quite a few countries - They all lie & then lie some more & they all have whole fossils in their closets, never mind, wee little skeletons & yet they're able to spin such a good story to minimize their potential harm & maximize any benefit that can be accrued from that !

 

[Amaa'n]

@jaibi thank you for writing such a nice report and sharing it with us.
I might not have the quantitative data to share with you here as you have.
I have argued with many on & off the forum that Foreign funding is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, if you think taking away such a piece than puzzle will be incomplete than you are overlooking the trump card they have.
Presence of Militant organizations in karachi is not a hidden fact, many of them are involved in protection money, kidnapping, extortion, and weapons smuggling. How else do you think weapon is landing in Karachi?
Moving towards north I personally know people who received threats from Taliban to pay up or family member will be kidnapped. In few cases, vehicles were stolen and returned only when the owner paid 3-4 lakh. they would return the vehicle undamaged.
Then comes the charity money, well saying that donations are being made only in Pakistan would be an understatement because muslims from UK, France, US love to donate to their local mosques. The funding necessarily is not generated through donations in monetary terms but from old household items i.e toys, clothes, shoes etc. Such charity organizations would drop the collection bags at homes in UK and than send it off to third world countries, that includes Pakistan. THe middle man makes his cut and there lands the funding for some of the projects.
I am not saying every chartiy out their is like this but some of them are involved in such businesses.

Talking about foreign funding than let me share that few months ago, in order to curb money laundering State bank imposed that anyone selling any amount especially Dollars worth 5000$ at the local money exchange they will have to give their ID card copy, and it was the duty of Money exchange owner to maintain a record of such transactions.
However at the start of this year that amount has been lowered down to 2500$.

Btw I can see you overlooked the Hawala System in your report, you should add that too, how they are using hawala system for the transfer of funds.


Regards

An interesting read here that should tell us more about Organizational structure of TTP. It should be noted that just 2 weeks ago, TTP recruited Charted Accountants to overlook the financial matters

TTP demands ?protection money? - DAWN.COM

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-4-180458-Karachis-security-to-weaken-if-Taliban-not-confronted
@jaibi there is an article from Economist on Hawala System and Terrorism in Pakistan that I want to share with you but unfortunately Economist webpage is down

 

[HAIDER]

Non organized insurgency can survive without foreign funding. Baluchistan insurgency has links from outside. We see in Pakistan a Madrassa owner all day roam around in his Land Cruiser . Can anyone afford these luxury vehicles. Only two options left for the funding of these terrorist organization , either they are all drug smugglers or they getting paid from foreign hands. Year ago Dawn publish , US govt warned Middle Eastern govt to stop funding Quetta Shura, which was basically fund and operates from UAE. Now Baluchistan is hotbed of TTP. .
When first time Baluchistan insurgency started , it was start by Iraq/Saddam in Pakistan with the help of India and Russia. The operation was run from Dubai. As far as Zakat donation goes to these terrorist organization , I doubt, people knows well where their zakat money is going. Hardly heard anyone dumped his zakat in madrassa.
Another source of funding of TTP was arm robberies, if check the record lots of Karachi banks been robbed.

 

[Amaa'n]

since I have been doing a bit of research on AQ presence in pakistan, this piece deserves to be shared here. Now if I am adding all the pieces right than AQ had been in Alliance with TTP for operational and financial support. And both have used the vast network of local militant groups which dates back to 90s.

http://dunyanews.tv/index.php/en/Pakistan/188601-AlQaedas-technical-hub-busted-in-Lahore