Archive for the 'Pakistan' Category

After the 9/11 attacks the U.S. made seven demands of Pakistan as a cooperative effort in the global war on terror (and specifically aimed – at that time – towards the Afghanistan campaign).

1) Stop Al-Qaeda operations on the Pakistani border, intercept arms shipments through Pakistan and all logistical support for bin Laden.

2) Blanket over-flights and landing rights for US planes.

3) Access to Pakistan’s naval bases, airbases and borders.

4) Immediate intelligence and immigration information.

5) Curb all domestic expression of support for terrorism against the United States, its friends and allies.

6) Cut off fuel supply to the Taliban and stop Pakistani volunteers going into Afghanistan to join the Taliban.

7) For Pakistan to break diplomatic relations with the Taliban and assist the US to destroy bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network.

Reportedly Richard Armitage threatened that Pakistan would be bombed back to the stone age if these demands were not accepted.  The Pakistani Army has tired of battle among its own people and various ceasefires have allowed the resurgence of al Qaeda and the Taliban in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

But over the course of the last year or two, an amicable split in the Taliban has seen Mullah Mohammed Omar’s forces refocus on Afghanistan, and Baitullah Mehsud’s Taliban focus internally on Pakistan and beyond.

“We will teach him [Musharraf] a lesson that will be recorded in the pages of history in letters of gold. The crimes of these murderers, who were acting at Bush’s command, are unforgivable. Soon, we will take vengeance upon them for destroying the mosques. The pure land of Pakistan does not tolerate traitors. They must flee to America and live there. Here, Musharraf will live to regret his injustice towards the students of the Red Mosque. Allah willing, Musharraf will suffer great pain, along with all his aides. The Muslims will never forgive Musharraf for the sin he committed.  We want to eradicate Britain and America, and to shatter the arrogance and tyranny of the infidels. We pray that Allah will enable us to destroy the White House, New York, and London.”

Because of the influx of foreign jihadists and evolution of fighters in the area to a more global perspective, Pakistan itself is now at risk.  Further, the Afghanistan campaign is in jeopardy of failure because of transnational movement and safe haven in the mountainous areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  CENTCOM realizes that the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan are one and the same campaign.  Thus, a more forceful U.S. presence has been proposed to Pakistan, along with eleven new demands (the story as broken by Shireen M Mazari and universally ignored by the so-called Main Stream Media).

The first demand is for granting of a status that is accorded to the technical and administrative staff of the US embassy. The second demand is that these personnel be allowed to enter and exit Pakistan on mere National Identification (for example a driving licence) that is without any visas.

Next, the US is demanding that Pakistan accept the legality of all US licences, which would include arms licences. This is followed by the demand that all these personnel be allowed to carry arms and wear uniforms as they wish, across the whole of Pakistan.

Then comes a demand that directly undermines our sovereignty – that the US criminal jurisdiction be applicable in Pakistan to US nationals. In other words, these personnel would not be subject to Pakistani law.

In territories of US allies like Japan, this condition exists in areas where there are US bases and has become a source of major resentment in Japan, especially because there are frequent cases of US soldiers raping Japanese women and getting away with it. In the context of Pakistan, the demand to make the US personnel above the Pakistani law would not be limited to any one part of the country! So the Pakistani citizens will become fair game for US military personnel as well as other auxiliary staff like military contractors.

The next demand is for exemption from all taxes, including indirect taxes like excise duty, etc. The seventh demand is for inspection-free import and export of all goods and materials. So we would not know what they are bringing in or taking out of our country – including Gandhara art as well as sensitive materials.

At number eight is the demand for free movement of vehicles, vessels including aircraft, without landing or parking fees! Then, at number nine, there is a specific demand that selected US contractors should also be exempted from tax payments.

At number ten there is the demand for free of cost use of US telecommunication systems and using all necessary radio spectrum. The final demand is the most dangerous and is linked to the demand for non-applicability of Pakistani law for US personnel. Demand number eleven is for a waiver of all claims to damage to loss or destruction of others’ property, or death to personnel or armed forces or civilians. The US has tried to be smart by not using the word “other” for death but, given the context, clearly it implies that US personnel can maim and kill Pakistanis and destroy our infrastructure and weaponry with impunity.

But Shireen M Mazari’s article resents U.S. involvement in the area, as do other Pakistani commentators.  Whatever else the recent elections mean, they do not mean that there is increasing support for the U.S. led war on terror.  The Pashtun have outright rejected such an idea.  The idea in vogue is that the U.S. presence is the reason for the unrest in the area.  The solution, they think, is to throw the U.S. out of the region and talk with the Taliban.

But herein lies the Pakistani blindness to the global jihad.  The classical insurgency might be concerned about governance, representation, wealth, and power, but the global jihad has as (at least one of) its motivators religious persuasion.  What the U.S. found in Anbar was that the concerns of the indigenous insurgents can be addressed by typical counterinsurgency doctrine, including military force but also other very important nonkinetic operations.  But the global religious fighters had to be captured or killed.  There was no other solution.

What Pakistan has yet to allow into the public consciousness is that jihadists bent on the destruction of both Pakistan and all Western influences must be eradicated.  The Pakistanis are confused.  It isn’t just the U.S. led global war on terror that is opposed by the jihad.  It is modernity.  The powers in Pakistan will soon enough wake to the peril that they are in, but by rejecting U.S. involvement to help stem the tide of dark change in the country, they are only ensuring that they will have to take the same actions against the jihadists themselves -and they will quite possibly be alone when they do.  It will be a bloody affair, and dangerous for the whole world.  The Pakistan military brass knows this.  The nationalistic rank and file are furious, and only time will tell how bad this gets.

A few days ago saw a strange dust-up between hardened Taliban fighters – the ones who drove the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan – and young Internet jihadists (although the Taliban would not have noticed or cared even if they did).

CAIRO, Egypt —  Al Qaeda supporters on the Web have unleashed an unprecedented flood of criticism of Afghanistan’s Taliban, once seen by extremists as the model of an Islamic state.

Now extremists accuse the Taliban of straying from the path of global jihad after its leader Mullah Omar issued a statement saying he seeks good relations with the world and even sympathizes with Shiite Iran.

In February, the Taliban announced it wanted to maintain good and “legitimate” relations with neighboring countries. Then, last week online militants were outraged when the movement expressed solidarity with Iran, condemning the latest round of sanctions imposed on Tehran by the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear enrichment.

The Shiite Islamic state of Iran is viewed as anathema by the Sunni militants of the Al Qaeda and other extremist movements.

“This is the worst statement I have ever read … the disaster of defending the (Iranian) regime is on par with the Crusaders in Afghanistan and Iraq,” wrote poster Miskeen, whose name translates literally as “the wretched” and who is labeled as one of the more influential writers on an Al Qaeda linked Web site …

“The Taliban seeks to be a respected political movement that can at the same time govern Afghanistan and be at limited peace with its neighbors,” said Rita Katz, the director of the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group which monitors militant Web traffic.

But she cautioned that the “Taliban’s surprising call to support Iran in the face of new U.N. sanctions does not mean that the group is suddenly offering unequivocal support to Iran,” though it shows readiness to coexist with the neighbor.

Cairo-based expert on Islamic movements Diaa Rashwan linked the Taliban’s quest for international legitimacy to possible future negotiations with the Afghan government.

“Mullah Omar’s statement about good relations are in response to accusations from the West that the Taliban is radical and does not accept dialogue or negotiations with others,” he said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in September he was ready to negotiate with the Taliban, including Mullah Omar himself, to put an end to the insurgency, while U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood said in December he would support reconciliation talks, with some conditions.

“The only problem about an eventual compromise with the Taliban is the fate of Al Qaeda, whether it will be expelled from Afghanistan or commit itself to the Afghan government,” Rashwan said.

The Afghan Taliban have always been nationalistic and focused primarily on Afghanistan.  We covered the recent somewhat amicable split between the Afghan Taliban and Baitullah Mehsud’s Pakistani Taliban, with Mehsud focused not only on the overthrow of Pakistan’s regime, but on global democracy as well.

“We will teach him [Musharraf] a lesson that will be recorded in the pages of history in letters of gold. The crimes of these murderers, who were acting at Bush’s command, are unforgivable. Soon, we will take vengeance upon them for destroying the mosques. The pure land of Pakistan does not tolerate traitors. They must flee to America and live there. Here, Musharraf will live to regret his injustice towards the students of the Red Mosque. Allah willing, Musharraf will suffer great pain, along with all his aides. The Muslims will never forgive Musharraf for the sin he committed.  We want to eradicate Britain and America, and to shatter the arrogance and tyranny of the infidels. We pray that Allah will enable us to destroy the White House, New York, and London.”

Pakistan is seeing and has seen since 2007 an influx of global jihadists into the NWFP and FATA areas of Pakistan, so there is no paucity of international fighters who will participate in a global war.  The so-called “nationalistic” tendencies of the Afghan Taliban are just that – political machinations intended to place them in the best possible position to regain power in the area.  They haven’t change their core values any more than al Qaeda has.

The picture of reactionary boy-jihadists and computer jocks presuming to chastise hard core Afghan Taliban would otherwise be humorous if not for the fact that these forums and chat rooms are recruiting grounds for future jihadists.  In case anyone doubts the ongoing threat of a transnational insurgency, this incident should remind us all just what General Abizaid intended when he coined the phrase “the long war.”

The Pakistani military leadership recently weighed in supporting Musharraf.

With Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s allies routed in last month’s parliamentary elections and civil society led by lawyers aggressively calling for his dismissal and trial for his actions in the “war on terror” over the past eight years, Musharraf has received a boost with the top military brass putting their weight behind the presidency.

Faced with rising militancy, the military did not have much option but to close ranks and back the US push to tackle Taliban and al-Qaeda militants head-on.

At a Corps Commanders conference in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, army chief Lieutenant General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani rejected suggestions of “distancing of the army from the president”, adding that “any kind of schism, at any level” wouldn’t be in the national interest, according to a statement

Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami party and a leader of the All Parties Democratic Movement, called the Corps Commanders’ proclamation “disappointing”. In a statement released to the national press, he said the move was an intervention by the military in politics.

The Corps Commanders’ meeting took place soon after Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Armed Forces, had met in Pakistan with top military leaders, as well as with Musharraf.

The Pakistani brass knows that the NWFP and FATA of Pakistan has become an ad hoc sovereign state that threatens both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The generals might be the only glue that both holds Pakistan together and continues to support the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan.  However, this support may be irrelevant, as Musharraf’s political opponents may be on the verge of a coalition which would remove him from power.

Pakistan’s two largest political parties — which won last month’s national elections — sealed a power-sharing deal yesterday, raising doubts about President Musharraf’s political future.

The accord between Asif Ali Zardari, the de facto leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and widower of the murdered former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) led by Nawaz Sharif, another former Prime Minister, cleared the way for the formation of an anti-Musharraf government.

“We feel that the country is on the verge of making history,” said Mr Zardari. “This was also the desire of Benazir Bhutto and we also intend to stick to the road to democracy; we are aware of the problems that the country is facing.”

Mr Sharif said that his party would be part of a federal coalition led by the PPP, which is expected to name its prime ministerial candidate this week. The PPP has won 120 seats in the new 342-seat National Assembly, and the Muslim League 90, bringing them close to the two-thirds majority required to strip Mr Musharraf of his powers to dismiss Parliament. The Assembly is expected to meet in ten days’ time.

Mr Zardari said that he had nothing personal against the President but Mr Sharif suggested that he had no future once the new government was formed. “I do not think we have recognised Musharraf’s existence; we consider him an unconstitutional and illegal president and would not like our sacrifices that we made during the last eight years to go down the drain,” said Mr Sharif, who was ousted by Mr Musharraf in a military coup in 1999.

This power move will play directly into the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda.  We’ve previously discussed the nature of the Pakistani elections, and how they weren’t the rejection of the Islamic parties and sharia law that they have been made out to be.  Rather, the elections were a rejection of [a] Musharraf, and [b] the inability of the moderate Islamists to govern.  The Taliban and other extremists didn’t participate because democracy runs directly contrary to their ideology. The Pashtun have rejected the global war on terror, and the Taliban are using this lever in their public relations efforts.

KHAR, March 9: Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Maulana Faqir Mohammad has said that the United States is the “number one terrorist” and the entire Muslim Ummah, in particular Pakistan, has been suffering because of its hegemonic policies.

Addressing a gathering in Bajaur Agency’s Aanayat Kalley area, the Maulana said that Pakistan had been turned into a battlefield because of President Pervez Musharraf’s pro-US policies.

“Waging jihad (holy war) against the US and its allies is an obligation of every Muslim, irrespective of state boundaries,” he said.

“Pakistan is our country. We love it. Osama bin Laden and Mulla Omar are also sincere to Pakistan and its people and they don’t want war with them,” he said.

“Bush is our enemy number one and till his defeat everywhere in the world, we will continue our war.”He said the “Taliban have every right to attack troops and installations” because of Pakistani rulers’ anti-Mujahideen policy.

He told the gathering that no person would be pardoned for “spying for the US forces”.

The Taliban leader warned the Afghan refugees in Bajaur “to leave their jobs in the Afghan government or vacate the area”.

Musharraf has only the generals in his corner, and this won’t be enough.  As for the boast that no person will be pardoned for spying for the U.S. forces, the Taliban recently proved once again their willingness and capability to conduct terror operations to be true to their threats.

Taliban militants have shot dead a spy chief in southeastern Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday. The district intelligence chief Habib Khan was kidnapped from his house by unidentified gunmen, late on Sunday.

His body was found in Dwa Manda district in the morning, local officils confirmed. Purported Taliban spokesman Zabeehullah Mujahid said their men were responsible for killing the district intelligence chief.

The killing of government officials, especially those working with police, Afghan national army and intelligence agencies, is rampant in the southern and southeastern parts of Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Admiral Fallon again declared that there would be no spring offensive in Afghanistan.

The top military commander in the Mideast said Wednesday that he does not expect Taliban forces in Afghanistan to launch a spring offensive this year. If anything, he said, he sees the momentum continuing to swing in the direction of coalition forces.

“The spring offensive is going to be by our people, as they move out and take advantage of the situation that they helped create through their good works there in the fall of last year,” Adm. William Fallon told the House Armed Services Committee.

While the Taliban continue to recruit jihadists to come to Afghanistan to fight U.S. troops.

The leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan has urged more Muslims to join and finance the group’s war there, saying Western troops are close to defeat.

“Your brothers in Afghanistan are waiting for you and longing to (welcome) you,” Mustafa Abu al-Yazid said in an audio recording posted on an Islamist Web site.

“The time for reaping the fruit of victory and empowerment has come … The infidel enemy has been badly wounded at the hands of your brothers and is close to its demise so assist your brothers to slaughter him,” added the militant leader, speaking with an Egyptian-sounding accent.

As long as NATO and U.S. command doesn’t get in the way of the campaign or relegate them merely to a training role, 3200 Marines should have a great opportunity to kill the enemy this summer.

The News from Pakistan recently carried a commentary on the threat that the Taliban pose to the stability and future of Pakistan.  In part it states:

The sudden rise of the “Pakistani Taliban” initially puzzled the Afghan Taliban. It could be true that the Afghan Taliban initially saw this as a welcome development that would help the cause of resisting the invaders in Afghanistan and leverage the Musharraf administration’s pro-US policies. But the Afghan Taliban grew suspicious when the self-styled Pakistani Taliban, awash with money and weapons, turned their guns on Pakistan. In January, Mullah Omar withdrew recognition from Baitulah Mehsud.

To stop Afghanistan from turning into a permanent base for anti-Pakistan destabilisation activities, Pakistani officials will have to think out of the box. This will not be possible without the help of the Afghan Taliban.

The best idea to emerge is for Islamabad to declare neutrality in the war in Afghanistan. According to this idea, Pakistan could talk to both the Taliban and the Karzai administration while maintaining equal distance from both. Islamabad already has a working relationship with Kabul but will need to restore the lost relationship with the Taliban. If the Pakistani broker can establish its credentials as a neutral party, there can be hope for brokering peace between Kabul and its local enemies …

With the newly elected federal parliament preparing to take over in the next few days, hopes are growing that Pakistan’s Afghan policy will finally be freed from US blunders in Afghanistan.

One can sense in this commentary the loss of Pakistani confidence that the U.S. can win the COIN campaign.  Consider what this commentary recommended.  First of all, the notion that Mullah Omar withdrew recognition from Baitullah Mehsud is exaggerated, and we pointed out that the Afghani Taliban under the leadership of Mullah Omar has split with the Pakistani Taliban, but refused to condemn them and also denied that Mehsud was expelled.  We also discussed the fact that there are two distinct lines of Taliban now, and that the Pakistani Taliban are of a different generation, with different tools and weapons, different views (more willing to conduct suicide missions), and just as radical in their beliefs.

But the Pakistani mind now fears the Pakistani Taliban.  At first the Taliban (i.e., the Afghani Taliban) were free to roam about FATA and NWFP as a safe haven from their operations in Afghanistan.  But the truce with the Taliban brought foreigners into the region who now target the Pakistani regime.  The tribal regions are like an independent state that now threatens both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The Afghani Taliban cross into Pakistan for safe haven, and when being pursued by the Pakistani Army, Baitullah Mehsud crosses into Afghanistan to avoid capture.

This fear is driving at least this commentator to recommend trying to leverage this split by siding with the Afghani Taliban in a war on the Pakistani Taliban, while at the same time declaring neutrality in the Afghani COIN campaign being waged by the U.S.  This strategy will fail, as Mullah Omar will have no interest in siding with the Pakistani regime to attack a brother jihadist like Mehsud.  If nothing else, this would deplete his own forces from the fight in Afghanistan.

Mullah Omar still has his eye on the prize.  In a recent interview on an Arabic-language Web site, a Taliban commander threatened to increase attacks on Kabul — not only through suicide bombings, but by targeting roads in the north and east in a bid to cut off the capital.

Prior:

U.S. Intelligence Failures: Dual Taliban Campaigns

Taliban Continue Fronts in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Concerning Killing Bad Guys and Sacking Worthless Officers

Resurrgence of Taliban and al Qaeda

The Marines, Afghanistan and Strategic Malaise

Misinterpreting the Pakistani Elections

Pashtun Rejection of the Global War on Terror

Everyone Thought the Taliban Would Not Fight!

NATO Intransigence in Afghanistan

In the town of Darra Adam Khel in the NWFP of Pakistan, the Taliban attacked a tribal meeting.

DARRA ADAMKHEL/ PESHAWAR, March 2: A powerful blast hit a tribal peace jirga near the Zarghunkhel checkpost in Darra Adamkhel on Sunday, killing at least 42 people and wounding another 58.

The jirga of Zarghunkhel, Akhurwal, Sheraki, Bostikhel and Toor Chapper tribes had been convened to discuss the formation of a Lashkar to drive militants out of the area, sources said.

It was not clear if the blast was the work of a suicide bomber, but local officials said that a teenager had detonated explosives just after the meeting had ended.

A severed head was found at the site and the officials believed it was that of the bomber. Some people identified the teenager as a youth from the Sheraki area of Darra, a hub of militants.

Security forces, it may be mentioned, launched an operation against militants in Darra Adamkhel in January in which scores of security personnel and militants have been killed.

Izat Khan, a tribesman injured in the explosion, told Dawn at the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar that the blast took place when the tribal elders were finalising modalities for raising the tribal force.

“I fell and became unconscious just as I was about to leave the meeting,” Mr Khan recalled. He pointed out that no official of the political administration or the army was there and said he had doubts about the official statement that the blast had been caused by a suicide attack.

This is the fourth explosion during the past three days in the NWFP and Fata. On Friday, an explosion killed three police personnel and a blast in Swat during the funeral of one of the slain police personnel killed 46 people. A suicide bomber hit a vehicle of Levies Force in Bajaur tribal region on Saturday and killed two people and wounded 24 others.

The jirga was attended by over 1,000 tribesmen. It had started at about 9am and ended at two hours later after unanimously deciding to form a Lashkar and calling upon the army to withdraw troops from the area. The meeting also sanctioned action against militants, who were attacking people in the name of Islam.

Tribal elder Haji Gul Rahim said most of the people attending the jirga had dispersed and about 200 people were discussing measures for security on the Indus Highway.

Witnesses said that the blast site was littered with human flesh and severed limbs. They said that the blast was so intense that it caused severe burn injuries.

Maulana Sabir Afridi, convener of the jirga, Haji Zar Khan, Haji Nazer, Haji Jamal Hussain, Malik Mohammad Nawaz and Haji Khan Mohammad Din were among the dead.

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that recent attacks have disrupted an expected post-election calm.

In four separate incidents over the weekend, suicide bombers struck large gatherings in Pakistan, shattering a fragile sense of optimism that has prevailed since national elections on Feb. 18.

The hope has been that those elections, by empowering Pakistan’s moderate, secular parties, could help stem Pakistan’s rising tide of extremism, which has left about 500 people dead this year. But for the last week, the elections have not brought a much needed sense of calm and euphoria.

But in what seems to be a stepped-up effort to sow chaos and fear, suicide bombers struck on Friday in Lakki Marwat, in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, killing a district superintendent of police, CNN reports. The following day, militants struck again during that police official’s funeral in Swat Valley – where the Army is still battling Taliban militants – killing 46 people. On Saturday, a suicide bomber targeted the vehicle of a security official in Bajaur Agency, a Taliban enclave near the border of Afghanistan, killing 21 people, the Associated Press reports.

Perhaps the inept analysts in the MSM expected a post-election calm due to empowering secular parties in Pakistan, but readers of The Captain’s Journal knew better.  In Misinterpreting the Pakistani Elections, we summarized the elections thusly: “The less ideologically driven voter abandoned the Islamist party, but then, he never voted for that party for the purposes of institution of sharia law anyway.  He voted for jobs, sewers, electricity, water supply and good governance several years ago and got none of what he voted for. Hence, he overthrew the clerics this time around.  The die-hards joined the Taliban.  There are various colors and stripes of jihadists the world over, from Salafism to Wahhabism, from the purist Sunni radicals in Saudi Arabia to the Shi’a Mullahs and their followers in Iran.  But one common element among them all is the utter rejection of democracy.  Democracy is deemed to be directly contrary to Islam, and the Taliban, al Qaeda and their sympathizers and advocates sat out the election.  They had no stake in it.”

The voters rejected two things: (1) Musharraf’s administration, and (2) the more moderate Islamicists (i.e., the ones who failed at administrating a state, but who also never saw Sharia law as being implemented through violence.  The religious extremists didn’t vote or run for office.  As to the future of Pakistan, we have consistently pointed out that there are two Taliban fronts; one in Afghanistan and the other in Pakistan.  There has been a resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda (with the new focus on suicide missions as we pointed out), and because the Pashtun have rejected the concept of a global war on terror, U.S. and Pakistani forces find unfriendly human terrain in the NWFP and FATA, and not just due to Taliban presence.  When the people do not support the campaign, the campaign finds the way hard and toiling.

The U.S. expects for there to be continued kinetic operations against the Taliban, and Musharraf soldiers on in implementing operations against them.  At some point it is likely that these operations will devolve into talks with the Taliban because the Army, the regional tribes, and the population in general will not support continued kinetic operations.  How long Musharraf can continue to press these operations without toppling his regime remains an open question.

The real news here is not that there is continuing Taliban violence, but that The Captain’s Journal laid out the correct scenario for you before it happened.  You should continue to read TCJ for cutting edge analysis.

A spokesman for the Taliban has now officially weighed in on relations with the new political parties in power in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Taliban fighters have threatened to step up their bloody campaign against the country’s security forces unless the new government abandons its support for the US-led war on terror.

On Sunday, the group welcomed the victory of opposition parties in last week’s election and called on them to drop the pro-American policies of President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally.

“We want peace, but if they impose war on us, we will not spare them,” said Maulvi Omer, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban.

“We don’t want political parties to repeat the mistake which Musharraf committed and follow a path dictated by the US” …

In another worrying sign for Washington, the PPP has called for an end to military operations against insurgents in Baluchistan, a southwestern province where the Afghan government believes the leadership of the Afghan Taliban may be hiding.

But as part of the same communication, the Taliban issued their threats, they offered peace talks.

Maulvi Umar, spokesman for the Islamic militant Tehrik-e-Taliban, said his group welcomed the victory of anti-Musharraf parties and was anxious to talk with them about ways to bring peace to northwestern tribal areas, where U.S. officials believe Osama bin Laden himself may be hiding.

“We hope after the government comes into power, they will not make the mistake of continuing the existing policies and will bring peace to the people of tribal areas,” the spokesman told The Associated Press by telephone Sunday. “We want peace and are looking for dialogue with those who got elected.”

Deebow at Blackfive believes that this means incursions across the Pakistani border to chase insurgents.  Sadly, I disagree.  NATO lacks strategic vision in the Afghanistan campaign, leading us in part to the situation in which we find ourselves.  The campaign has focused on transition teams, training Afghan troops, force protection, road construction, and every conceivable thing other than offensive operations against the Taliban.  This isn’t to deny that there are brave troops in theater who have fought and won battles.  It is to assert, though, that had they been allowed to do this unimpeded, the campaign would be far better for it.

As for Pakistan, talking with the Taliban is what led them to this point.  My prediction is that there will be more of the same and a continuing resurgence of the Taliban both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, unless 3200 Marines are allowed to hunt and kill the enemy.

Prior:

Concerning Killing Bad Guys and Sacking Worthless Officers

Pashtun Rejection of the Global War on Terror

Pakistan President Musharraf is considering stepping down (h/t Jules Crittenden).  Musharraf is important, but there is a more important undercurrent within Pakistani politics at the moment.  M K Bhadrakumar with Asia Times gives us a glimpse into the inner workings of the Pakistani mind.

A far more worrisome development for Washington should be the capture of power in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) by the Awami National Party (ANP). Foreign observers are yet to size up the profound implications of an ANP government, which espouses Pashtun nationalism, in the sensitive province bordering Afghanistan. The ANP’s electoral success over the Islamic parties is being commonly seen as signifying a rout of the forces of extremism and as the victory of the secularist platform. While this is manifestly so, what cannot be overlooked at the same time is that the ANP also has a long tradition of left-wing politics and consistent opposition to US “imperialism”.

I deny that it is manifestly so that the defeat of the Islamic parties should be seen as a defeat for extremism.  I argue (relying heavily on Nicholas Schmidle) that the Pakistani voters rejected the clerics failures to deliver on promises of prosperity, but that rejection of the clerics is not at all the same thing as rejection of the Taliban or other extremists in Pakistan.  Continuing:

Significantly, in the present party line-up, ANP expresses its closest affinity with PML-N – and not PPP to which it ought to be ideologically closer. Without doubt, ANP has opposed the US’s support of Israel, the US invasion of Iraq and the Bush administration’s intimidation of Iran. It has vehemently criticized Washington’s policies allegedly aimed at establishing US hegemony. It has condemned the US forces’ operations in the Pashtun regions in southern Afghanistan during the “war on terror”. On Wednesday, the ANP leadership reiterated its demand for “peaceful means to end militancy in the [NWFP] province and the adjacent tribal areas”.

In practical terms, an ANP government in power in Peshawar will find it impossible to lend support to the sort of military operations that the US would expect the Pakistani military to undertake in the border regions with Afghanistan for ending “militant activities”. Interestingly, ANP makes a clear careful distinction between “militancy” and “terrorism”.

To be sure, the ANP will point out that the US is pursuing its own national interests in Afghanistan and is expecting Pakistan to kill the Pashtun militants so as to save American lives. The ANP will also demand that Pashtun alienation in Afghanistan and in the tribal areas must be addressed through dialogue and political accommodation as well as through a long-term policy of economic development of the region.

The noisy election has been largely portrayed as a referendum on Musharraf’s controversial rule, whereas the specter that is haunting Washington is the widespread opposition to the “war on terror” in Pakistan. This opposition cuts across provinces, ethnic and religious groups or social classes in both rural and urban areas. The US’s perceived hostility toward the Muslim people is at the root of this anti-Americanism, and it will not easily fade away.

Bhadrakumar gives us reason to believe that the party that has been placed in power cannot accommodate the U.S. war on terror.  This is significant, and points to even deeper undercurrents within Pakistani politics, this undercurrent being tantamount to a Pashtun rejection of the war on terror.  It is good that the Pentagon is looking for other ways to supply NATO forces in land-locked Afghanistan if Pakistan becomes even more inhospitable to U.S. forces.

There are indications that planned “aggressive” evolutions against enemy targets in Pakistan may now have to be put on hold (or cancelled outright).

American officials reached a quiet understanding with Pakistan’s leader last month to intensify secret strikes against suspected terrorists by pilotless aircraft launched in Pakistan, senior officials in both governments say. But the prospect of changes in Pakistan’s government has the Bush administration worried that the new operations could be curtailed.

Among other things, the new arrangements allowed an increase in the number and scope of patrols and strikes by armed Predator surveillance aircraft launched from a secret base in Pakistan — a far more aggressive strategy to attack Al Qaeda and the Taliban than had existed before.

But since opposition parties emerged victorious from the parliamentary election early this week, American officials are worried that the new, more permissive arrangement could be choked off in its infancy.

In the weeks before Monday’s election, a series of meetings among President Bush’s national security advisers resulted in a significant relaxation of the rules under which American forces could aim attacks at suspected Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the tribal areas near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

The change, described by senior American and Pakistani officials who would not speak for attribution because of the classified nature of the program, allows American military commanders greater leeway to choose from what one official who took part in the debate called “a Chinese menu” of strike options.

Instead of having to confirm the identity of a suspected militant leader before attacking, this shift allowed American operators to strike convoys of vehicles that bear the characteristics of Qaeda or Taliban leaders on the run, for instance, so long as the risk of civilian casualties is judged to be low.

The new, looser rules of engagement may have their biggest impact at a secret Central Intelligence Agency base in Pakistan whose existence was described by American and Pakistani officials who had previously kept it secret to avoid embarrassing President Pervez Musharraf politically. Mr. Musharraf, whose party lost in this week’s election by margins that surprised American officials, has been accused by political rivals of being too close to the United States.

Meanwhile, more forces are being deployed to Afghanistan to “train” Afghani troops, and we cannot but conclude that the conventional operations which too soon stood down to “peace-keeping operations” (rather than COIN operations), are now turning into a complete turnover to the Afghan forces.  Part of the problem is the fact that NATO, which has absolutely no strategic plan for Afghanistan, is at the helm of the campaign thanks to the efforts of Donald Rumsfeld.  But while training indigenous troops to bear the load in Afghanistan is a positive step forward, the Taliban are enemies of state in Afghanistan only so long as they don’t hold power.

The Taliban are now and always will be enemies of America, and the human terrain in both Pakistan and Afghanistan is becoming complicated to say the least.  Time is of the essence, and the well-worn dictum that counterinsurgency takes ten years (based on David Galula’s experience, fighting different people under different circumstances who held different beliefs) will only serve as soothing and narcotic words to an addicted military brass as the campaign “goes South.”  The campaign, that is, that is both Pakistan and Afghanistan at the same time.

Main stream media reports almost across the board are gushing at the rejection of Islamism that allegedly dominated the recent Pakistani elections.  There are too many such reports to enumerate here, but one extreme example will suffice from McClatchy.

Pakistani voters have handed Islamist political parties a massive defeat, virtually eliminating them from regional parliaments.

The election Monday is likely to have a wide-ranging effect on efforts to rein in growing Taliban and al-Qaida influence in Pakistan’s North West Frontier province.

In 2002, fundamentalist religious parties, some openly sympathetic to the Taliban, won 12 percent of the national vote. That was enough to form a regional government in the province that borders Afghanistan. It also allowed the parties to become part of the ruling coalition in Baluchistan, another province, and to hold 57 seats in the 342-member national Parliament.

But unofficial results of Monday’s vote indicate that religious parties won only five seats in the national Parliament. In North West Frontier province, where the country’s Islamic insurgency is strongest, religious parties won just nine seats in the 96-seat provincial assembly. In 2002, they won 67.

“This is a sea change,” said Khalid Aziz, a political analyst based in the province’s capital, Peshawar. “The people have rejected the much-hyped Islamic nation concept.”

This is strong analysis – “sea change,” and “massive defeat.”  Yet this doesn’t even qualify as good surface level cursory analysis.  In order to understand what the Pakistani voters rejected and what they didn’t, it is important to go backwards in time to understand what is being called the “next generation Taliban” by the smarter analysts.  For this we must turn to Nicholas Schmidle.  His most extensive commentary and analysis from his time spent in Pakistan is entitled Next-Gen Taliban in the New York Times Magazine (a small portion of this important analysis is included below).

Efforts at democratic integration by parties like the J.U.I. have now been overshadowed by the violence of their antidemocratic Islamist colleagues – a network of younger Taliban fighting on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, jihadis pledging loyalty to Al Qaeda and any number of freelancing militants. Disrupting and discrediting democracy may, of course, be the point. The Bhutto assassination could well make moderation impossible, as Islamist radicals savor their disruptive power – and enraged mainstream parties threaten the stability of the government itself …

In Quetta, Maulvi Noor Muhammad, who is 62, sat on the madrassa’s cold concrete floor wrapped in a wool blanket as he leafed through a newspaper. Speaking in Pashto through an interpreter, he said that Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the J.U.I. chief, had visited three times in the previous few weeks to persuade him to enter the election. Muhammad claimed to have refused each time because he believed the J.U.I. had drifted from its core mission: to lead an aggressive Islamization campaign and provide political support to what he referred to as the mujahedeen, a term for Muslim fighters that can shift in meaning depending on who is speaking. “Participating in this election would amount to treason against the mujahedeen,” he said. I asked about the others in the party who had decided to run for office. Muhammad shook his head in disappointment and explained how, following the government operation against the Red Mosque rebels in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital city, in July, President Musharraf put religious leaders under tremendous pressure. “Musharraf threatened to raid several madrassas,” Muhammad said. “The political mullahs got scared.”

Maulana Fazlur Rehman is exactly the sort of “political mullah” whom Muhammad portrayed as running scared. In the past year, the J.U.I. chief has tried to disassociate himself from the new generation of Taliban wreaking havoc not only across the border in Afghanistan, as they have for years, but also increasingly in Pakistan. At the same time, Rehman has been trying to persuade foreign ambassadors and establishment politicians here that he is the only one capable of dealing with those same Taliban. (Rehman told me that he never offered Muhammad a chance to enter the election; he even added that the J.U.I. had already expelled the Taliban guru “on disciplinary grounds.” ) In the process, some Islamists maintain that Rehman has sold them out. Last April, a rocket whistled over the sugarcane fields that separate Rehman’s house from the main road before crashing into the veranda of his brother’s home next door. A few months later, Pakistani intelligence agencies discovered a hit list, drafted by the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, with Rehman’s name on it.

“The religious forces are very divided right now,” I was told by Abdul Hakim Akbari, a childhood friend of Rehman’s and lifelong member of the J.U.I. I met Akbari in Dera Ismail Khan, Rehman’s hometown, which is situated in the North-West Frontier Province. According to this past summer’s U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, approved by all 16 official intelligence agencies, Al Qaeda has regrouped in the Tribal Areas adjoining the province and may be planning an attack on the American homeland. “Everyone is afraid,” Akbari told me. “These mujahedeen don’t respect anyone anymore. They don’t even listen to each other. Maulana Fazlur Rehman is a moderate. He wants dialogue. But the Taliban see him as a hurdle to their ambitions. ”

Rehman doesn’t pretend to be a liberal; he wants to see Pakistan become a truly Islamic state. But the moral vigilantism and the proliferation of Taliban-inspired militias along the border with Afghanistan is not how he saw it happening. The emergence of Taliban-inspired groups in Pakistan has placed immense strain on the country’s Islamist community, a strain that may only increase with the assassination of Bhutto. As the rocket attack on Rehman’s house illustrates, the militant jihadis have even lashed out against the same Islamist parties who have coddled them in the past.

The next generation Taliban, unlike their predecessors in the tribal region who also want total Islamism in Pakistan and Afghanistan, completely reject democratic means to accomplish such change.  They are also more savvy technically and have no theological baggage regarding reluctance to suicide missions.  The Taliban in Afghanistan are learning from the jihadists across the globe who have travelled to Pakistan to fight, and suicide missions in Afghanistan are increasing, and increasingly carried out by Afghanis themselves.

More recently, Schmidle weighed in on what the vote from the North-West Frontier Province means.

Does this mean the end of Islamism in Pakistan? Not quite. In fact, while the defeat of Musharraf’s political allies in the PML (Q) signals a new political leadership in Islamabad, the defeat of the MMA could also signal a new political and religious leadership in the troubled areas along the border with Afghanistan. In the North West Frontier Province, where the MMA formed the provincial government last term, the Islamists’ vote bank was a combination of die-hards who desired the creation of an Islamic state and those less ideologically driven who were attracted to the MMA’s promises of justice, economic renewal, and security. This time around, the latter voted for the Awami National Party. The former, such as Iqbal Khan of the Swat Valley, joined the Taliban.

Note well Schmidle’s analysis.  The less ideologically driven voter abandoned the Islamist party, but then, he never voted for that party for the purposes of institution of sharia law anyway.  He voted for jobs, sewers, electricity, water supply and good governance several years ago and got none of what he voted for. Hence, he overthrew the clerics this time around.  The die-hards joined the Taliban.  There are various colors and stripes of jihadists the world over, from Salafism to Wahhabism, from the purist Sunni radicals in Saudi Arabia to the Shi’a Mullahs and their followers in Iran.  But one common element among them all is the utter rejection of democracy.  Democracy is deemed to be directly contrary to Islam, and the Taliban, al Qaeda and their sympathizers and advocates sat out the election.  They had no stake in it.

So what will be the likely outcome of the Pakistani elections?  No military action against the Taliban, just more talk, based on sentiment expressed just prior to the election.

“We must sit with [the Taleban], we must talk to them, we are from the same origin, we are from the same people, we’ve got the same language.”

Mardan candidates also believe a democratic, civilian government would have more legitimacy to negotiate with the Taleban than one led by a former general, like President Musharraf.

That has yet to be proven, says Rahimullah Yusufzai, an expert on the Taleban.

“I don’t think they have a strategy to deal with this,” he says.

“All are saying that if they’re in power they will negotiate with the Taleban, the extremists. That policy has been tried by Mr Musharraf. So I think the same policy will continue: military operations, peace accords, ceasefires, I think this trend will continue.”

The situation is even more shaky than that.  Combined U.S.-Pakistani operations were planned in the tribal region prior to the election and are now cancelled.  Further, the U.S. finds herself in the position of needing Pakistan more than she needs the U.S.

“Americans cannot do anything if we stop the operations in tribal areas. If they stop military aid, they are welcome to do so. We don’t need military aid. All we need is economic aid and they just cannot afford to stop it. Why? Because all NATO supply lines pass through Pakistan and if they stop economic aid, Pakistan can stop supply lines which would end their regional war on terror theater once and for all. This is the biggest crime of Musharraf – that he could not understand the strategic value of Pakistan in the region and could not exploit it.”

There are strategically difficult and tenuous times ahead for Pakistan-U.S.-Afghanistan relations.  The existence and strength of the Taliban and al Qaeda and the future of the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan hangs in the balance.  Whatever the future holds, the Pakistani voters have not rejected Islamism.  They have rejected lack of jobs and financial security because leaders of the Madrasah didn’t know what they were doing when they tried to govern a society.  Islamism has nothing whatsoever to do with it.  Making up fairy tales about what they meant when they cast their vote doesn’t help the counterinsurgency campaign in this troubled region of the world.

Admiral Michael Mullen recently made serious and ominous predictions in recent congressional testimony.  “Defense Department officials told members of Congress on Wednesday that Al Qaeda was operating from havens in “undergoverned regions” of Pakistan, which they said pose direct threats to Europe, the United States and the Pakistani government itself. Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, predicted in written testimony that the next attack on the United States probably would be made by terrorists based in that region.”

In order for this testimony to be seen in its proper context, some background is necessary.  Relentless kinetic and nonkinetic operations in Anbar by U.S. forces has accomplished two things throughout late 2006 and 2007.  First, al Qaeda has taken a heavy toll among its numbers.  The recent capture of an al Qaeda Emir’s diary catalogs the decline in fighers in one area of operation from slightly less than a Battalion to less than two squads.  Prime Minister Maliki recently announced that al Qaeda had been routed from Baghdad due to the security plan the U.S. launched a year ago.  The second affect of intensive U.S. operations is the co-opting of erstwhile indigenous insurgents into the concerned local citizens program.  There are still ongoing operations in Mosul, but the al Qaeda campaign in Iraq is an abysmal failure.

There has also been an increased difficulty in deploying to the Iraq theater.  According to General David Petraeus, the influx of foreign fighters into Iraq is down, but not just due to any actions by Syria.  “Much of the fall in numbers was due to countries barring young men from flying to the Syrian cities of Damascus and Aleppo on one-way tickets.”  Conversely, Admiral J. Michael McConnel recently testified before Congress that “we have seen an influx of new Western recruits into the tribal areas [in Pakistan] since mid-2006.”   But Western recruits are not the only ones who have traveled to the tribal regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan to join with Taliban and al Qaeda fighters (the so-called Federally Administered Tribal Areas).

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has recently released Issue 3 of the CTC Sentinel, which includes an important article by Brian Glyn Williams entitled “Return of the Arabs: Al-Qa’ida’s Current Military Role in the Afghan Insurgency.”  Within the context of the Iraq campaign, Williams sets up the coming Taliban / al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan as beginning in Iraq.

By 2007, jihadist websites from Chechnya to Turkey to the Arab world began to feature recruitment ads calling on the “Lions of Islam” to come fight in Afghanistan. It appears that many heeded the call. This was especially true after the Anbar Awakening of anti-al-Qa`ida tribal leaders and General David Petraeus’ “surge strategy” made Iraq less hospitable for foreign volunteers.

Since 2002, one of al-Qa`ida’s main roles has been diverting wealth from the Arab Gulf States to funding the struggling Taliban. One recently killed Saudi shaykh named Asadullah, for example, was described as “the moneybags in the entire tribal belt.” Men like Asadullah have paid bounties for Taliban attacks on coalition troops, provided money to Taliban commanders such as Baitullah Mehsud to encourage them to attack Pakistani troops and launch a suicide bombing campaign in that country, and used their funds to re-arm the Taliban. Local Pashtuns in Waziristan and in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province have claimed that the Arab fighters pay well for lodging and food and provide money for the families of those who are “martyred” in suicide operations. According to online videos and local reports, al-Qa`ida is also running as many as 29 training camps in the region, albeit less elaborate than those found in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The Arabs have also played a key role in “al-Qa`idifying” the Taliban insurgency and importing the horror tactics of the Iraqi conflict to Afghanistan. Key Taliban leaders, such as the recently slain Mullah Dadullah, have claimed that they learned suicide bombing techniques from their Arab “brothers.” Al-Qa`ida has also distributed tutorial jihadist videos throughout the Pashtun regions that give instructions on how to build car bombs, IEDs and inspirational “snuff film” images of U.S. troops being killed in Iraq. The first wave of suicide bombings in Afghanistan seems to have been carried out by Arabs, and it appears clear that it was al-Qa`ida—which has long had an emphasis on istishhad (martyrdom) operations—that taught the local Taliban this alien tactic. Arabs such as Abu Yahya al-Libi have also been influential in encouraging the technophobic Taliban fundamentalists to create “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” online videos of Zarqawi style beheadings, IED attacks and suicide bombings.

Furthermore, it appears that Arab fighters have actively partaken in insurgent activities within Afghanistan itself in increasing numbers. Insurgents in the Kunar Valley in Nuristan, for example, have chosen Abu Ikhlas al-Masri, an Egyptian who speaks Pashtu and is married to a local woman, to lead a group of as many as 170 fighters. Arab operations in this area are facilitated by its cross-border proximity to Bajaur Agency and support from a local Taliban leader named Ahmad Shah and insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the latter of which has a long history of working with Arabs. Arabs have also filmed themselves attacking coalition targets in Nangarhar, Paktia, Paktika, Khost, Uruzgan, Logar and Zabul provinces.

Most recently, Arabs have also been sighted farther afield fighting in the unstable southern province of Helmand under a first generation Arab Afghan leader named Abu Haris. Local Helmandi villagers also reported seeing Arab fighters in the village of Musa Qala, a town that was occupied by the Taliban for most of 2007. They reported that the Arab fighters set up suicide bombing facilities and were extremely brutal. As in previous eras where they earned a reputation for butchery (in 1991, for example, Arab fighters hacked captured Communist Afghan Army soldiers to pieces following the capture of Jalalabad), the Taliban’s Arab allies were reported to have executed locals they suspected of being “spies.”

Such actions hardly endeared the locals to the Taliban, and there are bound to be future tensions between the Arabs and the Taliban that echo those that often caused “red on red” conflict between Afghan mujahidin and Arab Wahhabis in the 1980s. The distrust between the Arabs—who come to the “backward” lands of Afghanistan from the comparatively developed Gulf States—are said to stem from the Arab puritans’ disdain for local Afghan Sufi “superstitions,” their most un-Afghan desire to achieve “martyrdom” and their wish to lead their own fighting units.

A local Taliban commander captured the ambiguous nature of the Taliban-al-Qa`ida alliance when he claimed of the Arabs: “They come for the sacred purpose of jihad. They fight according to Shari`a law.” He then, however, added an important caveat: “No foreign fighter can serve as a Taliban commander.” Even key al-Qa`ida field commanders, such as the recently slain Libyan leader Abu Laith al-Libi (the commander who led al-Qa`ida’s retreat from Afghanistan in 2001), operated under the command of Mullah Omar.

Despite the potential for tensions, al-Qa`ida’s head of operations in Afghanistan, an Egyptian named Mustafa Abu’l-Yazid, who is said to have good relations with the Taliban, has proclaimed that al-Qa`ida in Afghanistan recognizes the authority of Mullah Omar. For its part, the Taliban has charged one Mehmood Haq Yar, a Taliban commander who has allegedly been to Iraq to learn the Iraqi insurgents’ tactics, with making sure Arabs play a role in the Afghan jihad. It appears that both sides are united in their desire to topple the Hamid Karzai government and carve out an Islamic state in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

While it is difficult to estimate the number of Arab fighters in the region, it seems obvious that al-Qa`ida central is determined to play a key role as a fundraiser, recruiter and direct contributor to the military efforts in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moreover, unlike the earlier generation of “gucci jihadists” who made little if any real contribution to the jihad against the Soviets, the current generation seems determined to remind the West that the “Lions of Islam” have not forgotten the “Forgotten War” in Afghanistan.

The Afghanis are learning (ideologically) from the foreigners coming in to help the campaign, and also (tactically) from the Iraq campaign.

In Afghanistan, the Taleban now claim to have influence across most of the country and have extended their area of control from their traditional heartland in the south.

They are able to operate freely even in Wardak Province, neighbouring the capital Kabul, as a BBC camera crew who filmed them recently found.

One of their commanders in Wardak, Mullah Hakmatullah, said they do not control the roads nor the towns, but they hold the countryside and have increasing support because of the corruption of the administration.

“The administration do not solve people’s problems. People who go there with problems have to give a lot of money in bribes and then they get stuck there,” Mullah Hakmatullah said.

Support from villagers is essential to their ability to continue operations through the winter months.

The overall military commander of the Taleban in Wardak, Mullah Rashid Akhond, claimed to have 2,000 active fighters.

The fighters say locals support their brand of justice.

He said that he was operating an administrative system with orders coming from Kandahar in the south, just like during the days of the Taleban government that fell in 2001.

He said that the Taleban were running their own courts. “People are taking their cases away from the government courts and coming to us. Now there is no robbery in our area.”

Many of the suicide bombers who go to Kabul come from this area, just an hour’s drive away. Mullah Akhond justified them, saying that most of the attacks are now carried out by Afghans themselves, not foreign fighters.

Afghanistan and Pakistan face the next generation Taliban, who unlike their predecessors, are more savvy concerning technology, but just as radical in ideology and without the baggage of the theological reluctance of suicide (or martyrdom) missions.  Most recently, a suicide bomb was used to conduct offensive operations against Taliban enemies in Afghanistan, killing at least 80 men and boys.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a tribal festival near the southern city of Kandahar yesterday, killing at least 80 men and boys and wounding about 90 more in the bloodiest bombing in Afghanistan since 2001.

Officials said the target was a key anti-Taleban commander who played a vital role in keeping the guerrillas out of a district they have been fighting to take over for more than two years. Abdul Hakim, who died in the attack, was a staunchly independent commander with the Alokozai tribe whose private army of 500 men had fought the Taleban and sometimes clashed with Afghan security forces as well.

Mr Hakim, a former guerrilla in his late forties who had fought the Russians before serving for a while as the police chief of Kandahar, was one of the Taleban’s oldest and toughest foes in the Arghandab district west of the city. He first fought Mullah Omar, the Taleban leader, in 1994.

Although too independent to be a formal ally of the Kabul Government, he had been credited with helping to hold back Taleban fighters in one of the most strategically important regions of southern Afghanistan. The Taleban have pledged to conquer Kandahar, their old capital, and have fought bloody battles with Canadian and Afghan forces in the Arghandab, an area of orchards and farms which is one of the main approach routes to the city.

Mr Hakim’s death could be a heavy blow to attempts to hold them back. Dozens of his Alokozai tribesmen were also killed when the suicide bomber blew himself up at the tribal festival about 15 minutes’ drive from the city.

The same tactics are in use in Pakistan, and Taliban operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan should be seen as fronts in the same war.  The campaign in Afghanistan is utterly dependent upon supply routes through Pakistan.  This video below shows the torturous mountain passes through which some supplies must travel and the enemy operations against these supply lines.

More recently, Baitullah Mehsud’s forces have begun effectively to target main arteries through Pakistan to interdict these same supplies.  Danger is on the rise in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and yet the Afghan government is stolid and obstinate in its denial of the need for more forces, while this same government’s corruption is hindering counterinsurgency efforts.

The campaign in Afghanistan drew down from conventional operations too soon, and yet this mistake is being repeated by drawing down from kinetic operations against the Taliban and al Qaeda in favor of military transition teams and road construction.  The forces to effect both are apparently not in place, and there is an ever shrinking window of opportunity to win the campaign in the region, while also acknowledging the difficulty of drawing down in Iraq.

In a winter that is worse than any in recent memory in Afghanistan, Taliban operations have been kept to a minimum.  We should expect to see a resurgence in operations commensurate with the number of forces and motivation of the enemy.

Prior:

Taliban Campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan

U.S. Intelligence Failures: Dual Taliban Campaigns

Baitullah Mehsud: The Most Powerful Man in Waziristan

Taliban Continue Fronts in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Planning for the Spring Offensive in Afghanistan

Concerning Killing Bad Guys and Sacking Worthless Officers

In Our Deal with Mullah Abdul Salaam, I concluded the discussion on the British negotiations with erstwhile mid-level Taliban commanders who vowed to “switch sides” and fight against the Taliban, their forces failing to materialize when the battle for Musa Qala began.  From the Oxford Mail we get an update on the situation in and around Musa Qala.

When the British captured Musa Qala, they discovered a heroin refinery in a row of derelict garages – and a stock of opium which would have produced heroin with a street value of £5m. It was burned on a bonfire.

British soldiers are now sheltering in the open-fronted buildings, which offer little protection against the rain, snow and intense cold – night-time temperatures often fall to -10 C.

Up to seven heroin refineries in the district have been destroyed by the allies – depriving the Taliban of vital funds, collected through tithes from farmers and protection money paid by smugglers.

But while Musa Qala’s battered, bullet-holed district centre may have been retaken, the Taliban are still out there in the hills and villages, murdering anyone suspected of collaborating with the British or Afghan government forces, ambushing convoys, firing rockets and mortars, and planting roadside bombs – so-called Improvised Explosive Devices.

This is fine form indeed.  In addition to the Taliban roaming freely about the countryside to perpetrate violence, NATO forces are mixing up the global war on terror with the war on drugs, and destroying the population’s cash crop in their brainy rendition of “winning hearts and minds.”

Fred Kaplan relates a conversation he had with a British officer not too long ago concerning their view of the campaign: “The assumption, on the part of the NATO nations, was that the mission would be shifting away from “counterterrorism” to “counterinsurgency”— that is, from “going after bad guys for the sake of going after bad guys” (as one British officer snidely put it to me when I visited Afghanistan that summer) to securing areas for the sake of promoting economic development.”

Ah yes, the “deep magic” of counterinsurgency.  Enough money, military transition teams and roads, and the insurgency simply disappears.  Military power and kinetic operations is for uneducated knuckle-draggers and brutes – creation of infrastructure is for thinkers and scholars.  A variant of this view is present to the South in Pakistan, where the government is courting the idea of the implementation of sharia law in order to appease the extremist tribes in Waziristan.

As I discussed in Short Lived Ceasefire with the Taliban, a truce, or ceasefire, was negotiated only several days ago between the Taliban and Pakistan, but most good analysts believe that this can only be advantageous for the Taliban.

The same “deep magic” that causes British commanders to mock the idea of killing bad guys in Afghanistan also causes the Pakistani military command to call off military operations against Baitullah Mehsud and his forces in what is becoming a troubling sign of the lack of will concerning the tribal areas.  This lack of will apparently runs up through the highest levels of military command in Pakistan.

The announcement of a cease-fire just a few weeks into a determined military operation against one of Pakistan’s most wanted men, the militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, has once again raised questions about the Pakistani government’s commitment to combating militancy in the country’s tribal areas.

Pakistani analysts said they feared that the cease-fire was reminiscent of past deals that allowed the militants to regroup and fortify their stronghold, turning the tribal areas into a veritable ministate for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. United States officials have long voiced reservations that any further deals with the militants would be counterproductive.

Spokesmen for Mr. Mehsud, who Pakistani and American officials say is linked to Al Qaeda and the attack that killed the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, announced the cease-fire last week. The government has not confirmed it, and a military spokesman said military operations against Mr. Mehsud and his followers, estimated in the thousands, were continuing.

But two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists, said a cease-fire was in place.

The cease-fire announcement followed three weeks of intensive fighting that began in a mountainous part of South Waziristan on Jan. 16, when security forces mounted a large-scale offensive against Mr. Mehsud and his forces. Reports of the clashes said scores of soldiers and militants were killed.

The army imposed a debilitating economic blockade, coupled with a three-pronged operation to box in Mr. Mehsud and his militants, using the full force of the army’s arsenal, including fighter jets and artillery. The blockade was so effective that for weeks little information about the campaign emerged from the area.

The campaign has been part of the most serious push against militants in several years, led by the new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who Western diplomats had hoped would refocus the military’s effort in the tribal areas.

The acting interior minister, Hamid Nawaz Khan, suggested that military operations were bearing fruit and that the militants were on the run. “They start asking for negotiations themselves after they find themselves weak due to the military operation,” he said.

The reasons for what appears to be a reversal by the government remain unclear. But given the bitter experience of past deals, and the army’s apparent readiness to pursue military operations against Mr. Mehsud this time, the news of the cease-fire has been greeted with dismay by some Pakistani analysts.

In an interview, Mehmood Shah, a retired brigadier who served as the chief civil administrator of the tribal areas after 9/11, said he understood that the military operation was going well and according to plan, despite difficulties because of the terrain and the harsh winter weather.

He warned that any cease-fire or peace deal with Mr. Mehsud, before his forces were sufficiently degraded, would work against the military’s goals. “The army should not be doing a deal, and in the case that they are, it would be a mistake,” he said.

The problem, however, is that ceasefires have never helped the Pakistan military, and the Taliban have always come out better due to such deals.  In Afghanistan, military transition teams who aren’t really looking for a fight are left alone by the Taliban because they aren’t a threat to Taliban ambitions, and the same roads built by NATO are used by the Taliban to emplace IEDs and travel far and wide to kill and maim as part of their intimidation campaign.  Driving the Taliban from the urban centers, rather than a chase by NATO forces, means sending them into the countryside to lie in wait to “murder anyone suspected of collaborating with the British or Afghan government forces, ambush convoys, fire rockets and mortars, and plant roadside bombs.”

The “deep magic” of counterinsurgency fails its advocates, because there is a deeper magic still.  Just as there are some who take counterinsurgency to be equivalent to kinetic operations against the enemy, there are also some who lurch to the other extreme.  COIN is all about hearts and minds, infrastructure, reconstruction and societal stability.  This ‘either-or’ approach jettisons the ‘both-and’ approach to COIN in favor of a sequence rather than a concept.

Leadership is needed in Pakistan where the Taliban are being allowed to regroup and plan for the spring.  Leadership is needed throughout Afghanistan where chasing insurgents brings scoffs among the military elite, and where kinetic operations against the enemy is relegated to special forces operations against high value targets and prominent personalities.

The British officer to whom Kaplan talked snidely ridiculed “going after bad guys for the sake of going after bad guys.”  I might also snidely retort that I do not at all advocate going after bad guys for its own sake either.  Rather, I advocate “going after bad guys” for the same reason that I advocate building infrastructure and sacking totally worthless officers: for the sake of the counterinsurgency campaign and the future of Afghanistan.

Prior: Doctrinal Confusion in COIN: What do you do when your forces no longer want to fight?