VICE Guide to Karachi: Raiding the Taliban (Part 3/5)

SUROOSH ALVI: The next morning, we joined the police on a raid of Orangi Town, an area reported to be a popular hideout for the Taliban. As Americans have escalated drone attacks in the tribal areas, the Taliban have increasingly moved to the cities. And Karachi, with its huge Afghan refugee population, is the perfect place to blend in. CHAUDRY ASLAM: [SPEAKING URDU] SUROOSH ALVI: Now, I'll admit that I don't know a lot about police tactics, but I couldn't help but notice that this operation lacked the element of surprise. You've got hundreds of police officers with sirens blaring, and again, every television crew in town. None of the cops seemed too worried about walking into a potential showdown with some of America's most wanted. It wasn't quite the crack team we were expecting to be conducting this kind of operation. Deputy Tariq Malik was designated as our official tour guide for the operation. TARIQ MALIK: [SPEAKING URDU] SUROOSH ALVI: So I feel like I'm on the set of a cop movie right now, the kind of buffoon cops that nobody wants to work with. They get the *** assignment. So we headed it into the back alleys of Orangi Town to find some Taliban, Sunni extremists, or any other kind of bad guy that was still dumb enough to be there after 300 members of Karachi's finest came rolling through. So this is predominantly an Afghani and Mehsud tribe neighborhood. Here is a 4.5 million person slum that you can't control. So when the Taliban want to hide-- when things are going too hot in the tribal areas- they'll come to a place like this and blend right in and no one knows they're here. Jihadis-- that's what they're hunting for-- the new gang in town. Our friend, Deputy Malik, seemed more interested in texting than catching Taliban. Do you think anyone will shoot at us? TARIQ MALIK: Eh? SUROOSH ALVI: Will anyone shoot at us? TARIQ MALIK: Yeah. SUROOSH ALVI: Will they shoot? TARIQ MALIK: Yeah. [INAUDIBLE]. SUROOSH ALVI: OK. SUROOSH ALVI: We'll fight back. OK. You'll protect Jason? TARIQ MALIK: Yeah, yeah, SUROOSH ALVI: OK, good. I'm responsible for him. TARIQ MALIK: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE]. We are responsible. SUROOSH ALVI: The cops stopped and searched the first vaguely religious looking guy they saw, only to come up empty. So we continued on. We're going house by house now. MALE SPEAKER: This guy in the white has his finger on the trigger. SUROOSH ALVI: Yeah, I know. I know. He actually seems serious about this whole thing, which makes me think that they might actually pull some criminals out of this. They can't not with all this weeding. But then I started thinking, what if we do run into some hardcore Taliban and *** hits the fan? How am I going to explain this to Jason's mom? I'm sorry, Mrs. Movica, but your son, he was shot while embedded with the Karachi police force. He was hunting down Sunni extremists. Just another day at the office. I was beginning to figure out Deputy Malik's policing strategy-- no camera left behind. SUROOSH ALVI: I mean, this is a pure show. This is pure media cop show for all the networks tonight. When I go on these shoots, I don't want to end up surrounded by guns, it just happens. Why are there so many dudes with guns in everything we film? How do you know when you find the Taliban? SUROOSH ALVI: Right. And what are you looking for right now? Those specific Taliban members? SUROOSH ALVI: Killers. You're looking for the killers. SUROOSH ALVI: And then what are you going to do with the killers? SUROOSH ALVI: When you find them, you're going to arrest them? SUROOSH ALVI: Of the kidnappers. We continued waltzing through Orangi Town, looking for "killer type peoples." And then they found him-- straight out of Central Casting, a proper suspected Taliban member, turban and all. SUROOSH ALVI: Deputy Malik was like a proud papa. TARIQ MALIK: [SPEAKING URDU] SUROOSH ALVI: The media were happy, so the cops were happy, and they called it a day with one nine millimeter pistol and a guy in a turban safely off the streets. SUROOSH ALVI: [SPEAKING URDU] MALE SPEAKER: [SPEAKING URDU] SUROOSH ALVI: [SPEAKING URDU] MALE SPEAKER: [SPEAKING URDU] SUROOSH ALVI: Some guns that they confiscated from the old guy that looked like he might have been in the Taliban. I highly doubt he was in the Taliban. MALE SPEAKER: Did you see how that happened? SUROOSH ALVI: Yeah. He was smiling. He was smiling a bit. MALE SPEAKER: That was all set up? SUROOSH ALVI: Yep. MALE SPEAKER: All the kind of mocking of the situation aside, this is a really dangerous neighborhood. SUROOSH ALVI: Yeah, exactly. Watching what was supposed to be a sensitive anti-terrorist operation get turned into a media circus, I couldn't help but think that it was no wonder the US didn't want to involve the Pakistanis in the raid on Bin Laden's compound. It would have been broadcast on live television, and Bin Laden would have vanished into thin air, kind of like any actual Taliban that may have been in Orangi Town. Ugh. The gangsters, when they kidnap people, this is where they come and keep them, because no one would come out here to look for them, because-- I mean, why would they? It's brutal. MALE SPEAKER: [SPEAKING URDU]