Three Pakistani extremists are scheduled to be hanged next week. The Taliban has promised reprisals if the scheduled executions go ahead. (file photo)
Executions Of Taliban Militants Risk Provoking A Wider War in Pakistan
The Pakistani government's decision to restore capital punishment was designed to put the fear of god into the hearts of the country's hardened militants.
Instead, the move has provoked threats of war from Taliban factions as some of their comrades face imminent death by hanging.
The first three executions are slotted for next week. They include at least one prominent militant figure and two low-profile extremists associated with anti-Shi'a Sunni hard-line groupings.
Their scheduled execution prompted three major Taliban factions this week to issue a stern warning to leaders of the governing Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party (PML-N) for pushing ahead with the hangings.
The three militants include Muhammad Aqeel (aka Dr. Usman), who was convicted of masterminding a deadly attack against Pakistani military headquarters in 2009.
Leaders and purported spokesmen of Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e Jhangvi, and Mujahedeen-e Ansar told PML-N leaders to brace themselves for a wider war if Aqeel and the two other militants are executed next week.
Emboldened Taliban
The groups, widely seen as close allies, warned of suicide attacks and assassinations across the country of 180 million people, which is already reeling from militant violence.
Hassan Askari Rizvi, a defense analyst based in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, suggests that the Taliban is feeling confident of pressuring the government after carrying out a string of successful assaults since the administration took office in June.
"Now, because of that confidence and inability of the government to control them, they have threatened the government," he says. "We will wait and see what happens [and] whether the government goes ahead with the executions of these three people. And if it does, then what is going to be the reaction of the Taliban? They can engage in violence. They have been engaging in violence, so they feel confident that they can do it in future."
Pakistan's new federal government, led by the conservative PML-N, decided not to renew a five-year moratorium on executions that expired on June 30.
The administration declared that "there will be no general amnesty for the convicts waiting for execution."
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
The government has decided to speed up the executions of some 450 convicts who were supposed to be hanged during the past five years.
It is has prioritized the cases of those convicted on terrorism charges.
The PML-N administration is working to strengthen its antiterrorism policies. It is pushing for a comprehensive policy to tackle extremist violence, and its leader, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has called for terrorism to be defeated.
While marking the country's Independence Day on August 14, Sharif said: "Our will is strong and we have the capability to beat the terrorists."
A 'Retrograde Step'
The executions can still be postponed if the incumbent President Asif Ali Zardari delays signing the relevant death warrants, which are legally required before the hangings can be carried out.
Zardari has never signed such warrants during his five-year term, which ends in early September. His Pakistan Peoples Party enforced the suspension of executions during its five-year rule from 2008 to March of this year.
Outgoing Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari
International human rights watchdog Amnesty International has opposed the restoration of the death penalty. It called the development a "shocking and retrograde step" and demanded an immediate restoration of the moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
The government's decision, however, has attracted some backing from opposition politicians.
Senator Afrasiab Khattak, a senior leader of the Awami National Party, sees no other alternative for Sharif.
He maintains that the government needs to stand up to the Taliban because the "terrorists just want to establish a state within a state."
Despite his opposition to the administration and reservations about the death penalty, Khattak believes that the government's decision to lift the ban on executions cannot be blamed for provoking a war.
"These people [the Taliban] would have always reacted in the same way," he says. "Whether it was yesterday or it is today or it would happen tomorrow."
Currently, some 8,000 prisoners are on death row in Pakistan. Many of them have exhausted the appeals process and could now be executed. A lot of the convicts have links to the Taliban and other extremist factions.
Abubakar Siddique, a journalist for RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, specializes in the coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is the author of The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key To The Future Of Pakistan And Afghanistan. He also writes the Azadi Briefing, a weekly newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan.
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