Asim Munir walks Iran tightrope amid Shia-Sunni strains

IN an unusual development, Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir addressed a gathering of prominent Shia Ulema in Islamabad on March 19, where he issued a stern warning that any incitement of violence over events happening in other countries would not be tolerated.

Dressed ironically enough in civvies at the interaction, he was accompanied by Lt Gen Mohd Asim Malik, Director General, Inter-Services Intelligence (DG, ISI) and Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Director General, Inter-Services Public Relations (DG, ISPR), two of his most loyal henchmen of recent times. The Shia Ulema were led by Allama Sheikh Shifa Nirgi, Muttawali (Imam) of the Sector G-9 Imambargah, Islamabad.

The meeting comes as a sequel to the spontaneous, violent anti-American protests held by Shias in Karachi, Lahore, some towns of Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad on March 1, in the aftermath of the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran. Though reporting in Pakistani media was muted, police firing occurred in several places, leading to casualties, mostly of Shia youth, as also of some security personnel in Gilgit-Baltistan.

In his Friday sermon (Khutba) on March 20, Allama Nirgi lamented that the meeting was hardly cordial as the Field Marshal came across in a rather harsh vein, even as some of the clergy tried hard to explain that they had urged the agitated Shia youth to exercise restraint and not resort to violence. Munir dismissed their arguments outright. He also pointed out that activists involved in the May 9, 2023 anti-army violence in Gilgit-Baltistan (mostly Shias) would soon be tried in military courts.

This points to a growing strain within Pakistan's military and civilian leaderships as they come under increasing pressure, notably from the Saudis, to provide more teeth to their commitments extended under the recently concluded Saudi-Pak Defence accord — at least in the matter of more concrete air defence protection against the Iranian drone and missile attacks.

Such a message may have been conveyed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohd bin Salman al Saud to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Asim Munir during their March visit to Riyadh.

In stark contrast, public opinion in Pakistan remains strongly uneasy about any such hasty or partisan involvement of the Pakistani defence forces in the Gulf war theatre.

Against this backdrop, it is interesting that Asim Munir chose to visit border troops in Kurram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) for recording the customary Eid-ul-Fitr sympathy presence and ceremonial exchanges. Expectedly, he praised their valour in combating the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) during the recent 'Ghazab-lil-Haq' operations.

Kurram district was earlier the Kurram Agency of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and is now merged in KP. It is the only Shia-majority district of the province. Pakistan's sectarian history offers several precedents of how some areas of Kurram have been chronically prone to Shia-Sunni discord for many years. In August 1988, just a fortnight before Zia's plane crash in Bahawalpur, Allama Arif al Husseini, founder of the Shia Tehreek Nafaze Fiqhe Jafariya (TNFJ) was assassinated in Parachinar, capital of Kurram district.

The Shia pilot revenge theory did the rounds in conspiracy circles after the plane crash. In October, 1991, one of Zia's favourite generals, Fazle Haq, then Governor of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP, now renamed KP) was also shot dead. On both occasions, activists of the radical Sunni outfits, Anjuman Sipah-e-Sahaba, later merged into Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), were believed to have been involved.

The current sectarian tension in Kurram stems from a communication access problem due to the presence of Shia Turi tribes and Sunni Mangal and Bangash in contiguous areas of the district. Discord has usually erupted over road blockages on the Thall-Parachinar highway after even minor clashes.

Earlier, influential village elders (maleks) could resolve matters by working out hefty ransom payments to one aggrieved party or the other. However, these agreements proved short-lived. In the past, there was a possibility of accessing alternative routes to inaccessible border areas traversing through circuitous routes across Khost and Paktia, in Afghanistan.

With the TTP enjoying a safe haven in these areas, this option is no longer available to ordinary commuters or even servicemen taking state transport buses. At one stage, during floods, food shortages or other natural disasters, the local administration had even provided for helicopter operations, which could not, however, take root on a regular commercial basis.

In more recent times though, the KP administration has failed to keep open the crucial Thall-Parachinar highway. It has remained virtually closed ever since November 2024 after the outbreak of the latest Shia-Sunni clashes in the Bagan area of the highway in Kurram. A food and medicine convoy heading to outlying areas, led by the deputy commissioner of the district, was attacked and caught in the crossfire of sectarian groups in January 2025, leading to injuries to the latter.

Though Asim Munir has spent a considerable time in Saudi Arabia, serving in junior command, training or deputational stints there, and his closeness or loyalty to the Saudi monarchy has been frequently displayed, he has been careful to project his neutrality to the Iranian leadership and not hesitated to flaunt his mediatory capacity to the Americans during the rapidly developing crises of recent days.

In the past, just before Asim Munir's turbulent ascension to the Army Chief's post, a combative Imran Khan, then recently ousted from power, was not averse to raising before the Saudis the spectre of Munir's pro-Shia leanings or connections of his wife's family especially to the Ahle Tashi sect, which apparently the Saudis and the Pakistani politicians chose to ignore.

Munir and Pakistan's decision-makers will have to tread the sectarian tightrope carefully as they try to project their counselling credentials before their erstwhile Gulf benefactors and newly made US-Israeli friends in the days to come.