Arnaud de Borchgrave
The Pakistani army showed no hesitation about pursuing and killing Taliban insurgents everywhere except in North Waziristan, one of the seven tribal areas where different terrorist groups have long enjoyed a privileged sanctuary. When the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, was in Washington six weeks ago, he briefed his American interlocutors on the army’s plan for North Waziristan. He didn’t want to produce another flood of refugees, and his special forces were operating stealthily against known hideouts in the tribal agencies. Close, but no cigar.
The bottom line, which he could not spell out without betraying the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI): Some of the insurgent groups, such as the Taliban operating against the United States and NATO in Afghanistan, continue to maintain secret links with ISI, the organization that midwifed them in the early 1990s. Pakistan also was one of just three countries (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the other two) that recognized the Taliban regime when it took over most of the country in 1996, until toppled by the U.S. invasion after Sept. 11, 2001.
Gen. Kayani agreed “in principle” to large-scale operations in North Waziristan, but on Pakistan’s own timeline. This wasn’t good enough for the U.S. side. The longer the Taliban enjoys privileged sanctuaries in North Waziristan, the longer U.S. and NATO forces will remain stuck in an inconclusive conflict.
The state of Pakistan has borne the brunt of harboring terrorists, including the sectarian variety, for many years. Now that the state finally is taking some terrorists head-on, it is already well past the time when the sectarian outfits should be brought to book for spreading hate and murderous terror throughout the country. The banned sectarian organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JM) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) are now part and parcel of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
TTP has provided a common umbrella for most of the banned sectarian and militant organizations. Both LJ and TTP claimed responsibility for recent terrorist attacks. This was further evidence that Qari Hussain now holds a commanding position within the TTP. He is known as Ustad-e-Fedayeen or master-trainer of suicide bombers. He also is known for his anti-Shia sectarian stance. Indirect contacts with Taliban by this reporter reveal that the militants consider Shia Muslims potential security risks. They say Shias, being fundamentally anti-Taliban, have been spying on them.
After being kicked out of the Mehsud area of South Waziristan by the Pakistani army and moving to North Waziristan (which the army has spared thus far), TTP-LJ is now forcing out Shias and warning them they will be killed if they attempt to return later.
The militants in North Waziristan, led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, are constantly being referred to as “pro-government” or nonlethal because of their Afghan-specific militancy. When we hear he is in army custody, that simply means he is conferring with his ISI handlers.
The army claims to have trounced TTP militants in Bajaur and Mohmand agencies, but ongoing incidents of government schools being destroyed and the assassination of anti-Taliban tribal chiefs in these two tribal zones disprove official claims.
It is increasingly obvious that the army’s hesitancy over North Waziristan is what prompted National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones and CIA Director Leon Panetta to cancel speaking engagements and suddenly fly off to Islamabad last week for another session with Pakistan’s Gen. Kayani. He headed a high-powered delegation to Washington six weeks ago, and the U.S. side understood the army would roll over North Waziristan in the very near future. The overall objective is to deprive the Afghan Taliban of its safe havens in the tribal agencies along the border.
The more military pressure on the Taliban, the better the chance of a favorably negotiated settlement. No one believes the Taliban can be defeated with a clear victory for Western coalition forces.
Talks about talks have been under way ever since Saudi King Abdullah hosted a dinner for both sides in Mecca on Sept. 27, 2008. One of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s brothers and the former foreign minister of the Taliban represented the two sides. More recently, seven Talibanis have been meeting in the Maldives islands in the Indian Ocean with several representatives of the U.S.-backed Kabul government. A three-sided coalition of the Taliban, including neutrals aligned with neither side, and Mr. Karzai’s representatives, is being talked about in United Nations circles inKabul.
The average Afghan has little use for a Taliban regime. But one also hears the refrain that a reformed Taliban is preferable to an endless war. Reformed would mean medieval theocrats who would not allow al Qaeda to stage an Afghan comeback but would allow girls to go to school and boys to have educational opportunities besides madrassas.
For the immediate future, the White House is worried about Pakistan’s faltering military campaign in FATA (Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas) against TTP, the terrorist organization that seeks to reconquer Afghanistan. It has killed almost 10,000 Pakistanis in the past three years. But first they have to be defeated in FATA in general and North Waziristan in particular.
Since the Pakistani army pushed the insurgents back from 60 miles outside the capital of Islamabad, rolled them out of the Swat Valley and moved into two of FATA’s seven tribal areas – Bajaur and South Waziristan – men and equipment are exhausted, short of critical equipment. They only have a dozen old Russian helicopters to move troops around some of the world’s most forbidding terrain.
Blackhawks are flown in 42 countries, but the United States can’t spare any from the Iraq and Afghan theater or from other commitments in Djibouti, South Korea and the Gulf. Pakistani pilots have long been regarded as among the best in the developing world.
Not winning in a counterinsurgency campaign like Afghanistan is tantamount to losing. Resupplying widely scattered troop contingents from 42 countries has become a logistical nightmare. The United States now has 87,000 troops inAfghanistan alongside 47,000 soldiers from other countries. There are 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan – from the huge Bagram Air Base to small camps, forward operating bases and isolated combat posts.
President Obama is committed to start bringing troops home from Afghanistan by July 2011. Canada, the Netherlands,Germany and others don’t plan to stay longer.
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor-at-large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.
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