Archive for the 'Pakistan' Category

Even after the recent NATO efforts at ridding the troubled regions in Afghanistan of Taliban, the Gulf Times is reporting on a changed nation-state due to Taliban influence:

PASHMUL: “It is very dangerous here because the Taliban have not been driven out and Nato is still here,” says a villager in this part of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province.

Days after Nato forces declared they had defeated insurgents entrenched in Panjwayi and Pashmul, worried inhabitants still fear the Taliban and some even sympathise with the rebels.

And life cannot return to normal.

“It is impossible to go back to our village because our house has been destroyed, unless the coalition forces help us,” continues villager Haji Bilal-jan, referring to Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

“My house was bombed and burnt. I lost 4,000 kilos of raisins that were ready for market,” says the 48-year-old with a black turban and thick beard.

“ISAF was cruel, they bombed our houses when there weren’t even any Taliban here.”

Another villager, Namatullah, interrupts. “Why did you allow the Taliban to come here?” demands the 45-year-old, who does not wear the traditional turban, unleashing a bitter debate. “We have to call a shura (council) in every village to appoint someone to tell the strangers – Taliban or other – to go on their way,” he says.

But says Haji Bilal-jan, “We do not have the power to stop the Taliban from coming to our village or to ask the coalition not to bomb our houses.”

“The government must pardon everyone and let them return,” he says, apparently referring to the Taliban, whose main leaders have found refuge in Pakistan.

Namatullah recalls meeting some of the Taliban who had moved into the area. “One day I was working close to a stream where women were washing clothes with the children. A hundred metres away, I saw a group of Taliban.

“I told them to leave, that they were going to get these women and children killed. They replied, ‘No we have orders.'” His house was destroyed by a bomb and his loft, which contained Rs25,000 worth of opium, was hit by a rocket, he says.

But he is not complaining. “I am happy because the Taliban deserve punishment, even if it cost the destruction of my house.” “If Pakistan is helping them, the Taliban will come back. If it drops them, they will not come back,” he says. 

The Taliban are patiently awaiting the tiring of the coalition forces ensuing in their final departure, which would mark their opportunity to retake at least part of Afghanistan.

In other news, Musharraf apparently hopes for the same thing.  The things he is doing and saying do not help the U.S. effort in Afghanistan.  Musharraf’s demuring to a book contract the other day when faced with questions at the White House is more than just clownish behavior.  It is designed to undermine the war effort.

The U.S. is in an intricate dance with Pakistan, balancing concerns over a potentially unstable regime armed with nuclear weapons with the need for access to troubled provinces as well as A. Q. Khan, the father of the nuclear program in Pakistan.  This dance must end at some point, and the Taliban must be defeated while information is also mined concerning the Iranian nuclear program.

Since the intense pressure in 2001 on Pakistan to take sides in the GWOT, the U.S. has been in a tricky and tenuous dance with Musharraf.  Pakistan is armed with nuclear weapons, and the father of this program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, is widely regarded as a hero in Pakistan for putting Pakistan on even ground with India.

Pakistan also has strong elements of radical Islam in its intelligence services, but Musharraf has claimed that its nuclear weapons are under strict custody and will not fall into the wrong hands.  But the U.S. administration has taken the position that Musharraf, while weak in his handling of the radical elements in Pakistan, is better than the alternative should a coup topple his government.

It was a made-for-main-stream-media confession that Musharraf gave recently concerning their nuclear proliferation:

Musharraf claims he only suspected that Khan was passing secrets to Iran and North Korea until the then CIA director George Tenet confronted him with proof at the United Nations in 2003.

“(Tenet) passed me some papers. It was a centrifuge design with all its numbers and signatures of Pakistan. It was the most embarrassing moment,

Waziristan has seen Taliban violence in the past months, and many tribal elders have been killed.  The recent accords between Pakistan and Waziristan is a victory for the Taliban, but recent U.S. Military action would seem to indicate that the U.S. is not willing to allow this region to continue being safe haven for the Taliban. 

The Taliban have wreaked violence and havoc throughout the border provinces recently as a prelude and harbinger of the accords between the Pakistan and Waziristan.  Courtesy of The Word Unheard:

Militant groups opposed to the United States and Pakistan Army have almost taken over control of the volatile and troubled South Waziristan district where the Pakistani Army last year launched major operations, and after heavy casualties, claimed to have cleaned up the place and restored peace.

That peace, as is now turning out, is purely on the terms of Taliban and its armed fighters, who have reorganized and emerged as the de facto rulers of the area. Some 60 notable Maliks and elders of the region, who collaborated with the US and Pakistan Army, have been shot dead in the last 18 months.

The groups, led by trained Taliban commanders have taken physical control. New offices have been opened all over the Agency to recruit youngsters and fighters for ‘jihad’ inside Afghanistan, Kashmir and against the Pakistan Army.

It is thus no surprise that attacks against government installations have now become a routine affair. Attacks against candidates, pro-government clergymen and government officials have increased in the neighboring Afghanistan as the war-ravaged country prepares to hold the first ever parliamentary elections on September 18.

The groups collect money and ask for generous donations. Foreigners are escorted by local Taliban to visit mosques, mostly during the night, crying and wailing before the faithful, asking them for help against the infidels and their supporters, a number of local tribesmen confirmed.

This is a bleak picture, but it is still unclear how the Pakistan-Waziristan accord will effect the Afghanistan war effort and the strength of the Taliban.  I posted earlier posing the question whether Musharraf would consider Waziristan as Pakistani territory and if the U.S. military would have the freedom to operate inside the region of Northern Waziristan, concluding that the Taliban had cleaned up in the deal with Musharraf, and that the U.S. would be prohibited from entering this area.

As it is turning out, this question might have a somewhat more complicated answer than I had previously granted.  There are recent reports of U.S. military action in Waziristan:

Miran Shah, 21 Sept. (AKI/DAWN) – Security forces have arrested 10 people from Lawara Mandi area near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the North Waziristan Agency, officials said. The action was taken after six US helicopter gunships intruded into the Pakistan airspace following clashes between the allied forces and Taliban across the border. The intrusion by US helicopters prompted the military and political authorities to proceed to the area along with tribal elders, including parliamentarians. It was the first action by the security forces since the peace accord reached between the government and militants early this month.

The authorities, sources said, believed that Taliban guerrilla might sneak into Lawara Mandi after clashes with the US-led allied forces in Pipali area of Afghanistan close to the North Waziristan Agency.

The sources said that army and paramilitary forces in collaboration with the tribal elders, including MNA Maulvi Nek Zaman, besieged a cluster of houses in Lawara Mandi on Tuesday night and asked local residents to hand over suspects.

There seems to be subtle political pressure from the administration on Pakistan, and Hamin Karzai knows that battling the Taliban in Afghanistan will not pacify the region, and he bluntly told the U.N. that action inside Pakistan is necessary:

“We must look beyond Afghanistan to the sources of terrorism. We must destroy terrorist sanctuaries beyond Afghanistan, dismantle the elaborate networks in the region that recruit, indoctrinate, train, finance, arm and deploy terrorists.”

The U.S. Military knows that the coming weeks and months in Waziristan are crucial, and is watching the developments in that region.  In fact, they might be doing more than watching.  It is no mistake that helicopters chased the Taliban across the border in recent firefights, in this instance continuing the chase rather than suspending operations upon reaching or crossing the border.

It is possible that the U.S. Military is trying to help Musharraf and the anti-Taliban tribal elders in Waziristan along with the process of honoring the accords that have been reached.  The message may be that there will be no peace in the region – no matter what accord has been reached – until and unless sanctuary has been denied to the Taliban.

Only time will tell how this ends.  But in the mean time, the great Taliban chase should continue unabated.  There is no substitute for killing the enemy in war.

Musharraf is trying to survive, and in doing so has ceded control over breakaway provinces to the Taliban.  Yet he defends those same provinces as being Pakistani territory, denying that the U.S. has authority to enter those provinces.  The U.S. administration will face a coming decision on military action directly against the Taliban in Pakistan.

The counterterrorism community has been tracking for a couple of weeks the gradual diminution of Pakistan sovereignty in seven Western breakaway provinces in Pakistan, and the signing of accords, or truces, with the Tribal leaders in those regions.  These tribes are closely connected to the Taliban and al Qaeda, many of whom have made these regions their safe haven from NATO attacks inside Afghanistan.  The most recent post by Andrew Cochran at the Counterterrorism Blog (Is Musharraf Buying His Survival and is Bush Giving up on Him?) poses some interesting questions for official U.S. policy and Bush’s position concerning these developments.

The State Department endorsed this Pakistan retreat, and Bush had supportive words a few days ago concerning, saying:

“What he is doing is entering agreements with governors in the regions of the country, in the hopes that there would be an economic vitality, there will be alternatives to violence and terror.”

Today the song sounds a little different.

NEW YORK (CNN) — President Bush said Wednesday he would order U.S. forces to go after Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan if he received good intelligence on the fugitive al Qaeda leader’s location.

“Absolutely,” Bush said.  The president made the comments Wednesday in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.  Although Pakistan has said it won’t allow U.S. troops to operate within its territory, “we would take the action necessary to bring him to justice.”

But in response, Musharraf, in New York on Wednesday at the United Nations, said:

“We wouldn’t like to allow that at all. We will do it ourselves.”

This is an interesting development, and the U.S. military establishment should take notice.  Musharraf has ceded control over the breakaway provinces to the Taliban and tribal leaders, essentially abdicating Pakistani sovereignty over these provinces.  The question naturally arises, “Will the U.S. then feel the freedom to take the necessary military action in those provinces to address the Taliban threat?”

The answer from Musharraf seems to be no.  Musharraf wants to survive, and is thus playing the game that he sees as necessary to this end, but when speaking of those areas that have broken away from Pakistan, he sees those areas as Pakistani territory.

The Taliban indeed have safe haven.  They have been given unmitigated control over the provinces, yet they have the protection of being considered Pakistani territory.  But Musharraf is certainly playing a game.  He said of Bin Laden:

“This notion that anybody who has a record as a terrorist will get safe haven — we would not even think of doing that.”

Yet this is exactly what he is doing, and he admitted it recently.

For the first time, Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff has revealed that his government may know the general whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.

Speaking at a meeting in New York earlier this week, Musharaff conceded that bin Laden may well be in his country, according to people who heard his comments. 

“We believe he is somewhere between Bajaur, Pakistan, and the province of Kunar in Afghanistan,” he said at a meeting connected to his appearance at the United Nations.

The extent of the U.S. victory in Afghanistan against the Taliban will be directly proportional to the extent to which action is taken directly against the Taliban in their safe havens in the breakaway provinces.

Let me be clear on what I think.  The coalition forces are winning in Afghanistan.  From intelligence estimates, there are only several thousand Taliban fighters left in the mountainous region bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan.  To put this in context, several thousand is the number sitting in a medium to large church in any U.S. city on a Sunday, and perhaps 1/20 of the attendance at a typical college or professional football game on a Saturday.  This is simply a small force size considering the fact that just a few years ago the country was controlled by Taliban (excluding the region controlled by the Northern Alliance).

On September 3, the Strategy Page was reporting:

September 3, 2006: Over the weekend, NATO troops near Kandahar (in the west), killed over 200 Taliban, while losing four of their own troops. Nearly a hundred Taliban were captured. This was part of a NATO operation to cripple Taliban forces in the Kandahar area. It appears to have succeeded, as interrogations of captured Taliban showed that this was a major enemy force in the area, and contained many key leaders.

It is noteworthy that 200 Taliban is considered a “major enemy force.”  This is not even a company of fighters.  As for the success rate over the last eight months, the Strategy Page is reporting:

September 5, 2006: The Taliban Summer offensive is nearly over, as the cold weather begins showing up. Nearly 2,000 have died in the last eight months from the Taliban violence. Most of the dead have been Taliban, most of them Afghans, but about a third Pakistanis and about five percent of them other foreigners. Most of the civilian victims were targeted by the Taliban. These included teachers and other government officials murdered by the Taliban, as part of a terror campaign to gain control over tribes in the south. This has largely backfired, as the Taliban was not strong enough to maintain constant pressure on the tribes. Apparently, the high Taliban death toll is the result of keeping large groups of gunmen in action, as this was the only way to back up the smaller terror squads, in the face of tribal attempts to resist or retaliate. But army and coalition forces would constantly catch the large Taliban groups, and smash them with smart bombs and superior firepower. 

So there have been many Taliban deaths, and their ability to field a fighting forces has been seriously weakened and compromised in Afghanistan.  But the situation seems to be different within Pakistan.

Yesterday was an interesting day on the conservative blogosphere.  It all started with the announcement of the truce / agreements signed between the Pakistan government and the Pashtun Muslims.  Bill Roggio posted on these events, focusing on the underreported story of the Pakistan “surrender” to the Muslim extremist fighters.  This created a storm of posts, counterpoints, trackbacks and comments, Michelle Malkin supporting the idea of a surrender, while the Captain’s Quarters supported the idea of a slick deal where the Taliban were the losers (and Musharraf the winner); Dan Riehl weighed in supporting the idea of a slick deal by Musharraf, while many other small bloggers (like yours truly) weighed in affirming Roggio’s position.

When the conservative blogosphere speaks, seldom is there as stark a difference of opinion as there was yesterday.  Still, in spite of the differences, the fact that a deal was cut at all implies a very weary Pakistan government (and restive troops and intelligence apparatus).  The Strategy Page weighs in on this issue as well:

September 6, 2006: Pakistan has declared victory and acknowledged defeat in the Pushtun tribal territories along the Afghan border. The government has signed a truce deal with the tribes. Under the terms of the deal, the tribes promise to expel foreign Islamic terrorists from their territories, and not allow their own men to join Taliban operations in Afghanistan. Neither promise is likely to be kept. Even now, Islamic extremists are exercising more control in the tribal territories, forming militias that are able to defy the tribal elders. However, the government is now expected to keep its troops in bases near the urban areas (which the tribes do not control anyway), and send in millions of dollars in economic aid (which the United States is expected to provide). This charade will go on (for a year or so) until the violations of the deal become too much to ignore. At that point, the war between the government and the tribes will resume. Afghanistan is already complaining of an increase in Pakistani Pushtun Taliban crossing over to fight.

The government was not willing to pay the price, in lives and cash, to subdue the tribes. This is nothing new, the fierce and persistent resistance of the Pushtun tribes has defeated outsiders for centuries. But there was also a religious angle. The tribes are full of Islamic conservatives, and tribal religious leaders have been turning the fighting into a religious war. The government does not want to give Islamic conservatives elsewhere in Pakistan more ammunition. Moreover, a significant minority of the officers in the army are Islamic conservatives, and the fighting was causing unrest with that important group. So the government has declared victory, stopped fighting the tribes, and is hoping to come up with some kind of Plan B before the Islamic terrorism gets out of hand. 

I concur that the Taliban in Pakistan cannot be trusted to carry out their obligations.  If you want to see why, look no further than their actions towards their own fighters.  On September 2, the Strategy Page reported:

September 2, 2006: Pakistan has been signing truces with rebellious Pushtun tribes on its side of the border, and this has led to a noticeable increase in the number Pakistanis captured or killed fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The additional number of Pakistanis in Afghanistan is not great, perhaps only a few hundred, but these guys have guns and murderous intent, and have hurt Afghans and foreign troops. 

Notice what has led to the noticeable increase in the number of Pakistanis captured or killed in fighting.  The signing of truces with the Pakistan government.

Get the picture?  In order to effect a downsizing in the hostilities with the Pakistan government, the Pashtun tribes were willing to sell out their own in Afghanistan to be killed.  Not foreign fighters — their own tribesmen.

This is the Taliban that Musharraf has cut a deal with.