Despite the deployment of an estimated 80,000 troops along the Afghan border in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the situation is far from stable in the region that is crucial to Islamabad and Washington. This was confirmed in the preceding week, when at least 40 persons died in a welter of violence. At least 14 people were killed and 50 others sustained injuries when a bomb exploded on December 8 at a market in the Jandola town of South Waziristan. On the same day, beheaded bodies of two Frontier Corps personnel were discovered near Wana, headquarters of South Waziristan. The two were among four soldiers abducted on December 6. In the adjacent North Waziristan, violence erupted on December 6 when local Taliban cadre clashed with a group of bandits and 21 persons were killed in the subsequent clashes. In macabre fashion, the Taliban also reportedly strung up the bodies of five dead bandits and displayed one head on a pole.
Notwithstanding several military operations in the area and Islamabad’s claim that the situation is under control, official statistics for the year 2005 (till September 1) indicated that 300 civilians had been killed and about 800 injured while the number of dead army personnel was more than 250 and more than 600 have been injured. The sheer volume of incidents of violence in Waziristan during 2005 has been high, with the South Asia Terrorism Portal (based on a daily monitoring of Pakistan’s English media) recording 112, although, given the erratic reportage and Islamabad’s understated accounts, the actual numbers could be much higher. Geographically, the violence that was earlier confined to South Waziristan has currently spread to North Waziristan and could extend to other areas, especially the North West Frontier Province. Much of the recent violence and subversion, it bears mention, has occurred in the background of a change of Corps Commanders in Peshawar, with Lt. Gen. Muhammad Hamid Khan replacing Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain on September 23.
The death toll in FATA during 2005 is also, without doubt, linked to developments in Afghanistan. Fatalities across the border in the current year, according to open sources, have been the highest since the Global War on Terror (GWOT) began, with at least 1,500 persons, including 84 American troops, killed. Last year, the death toll was about 850. Clearly, American and Afghan forces have failed to control the violence on their side of the border, particularly in the Khost, Paktia, Zabul and Paktika provinces.
In FATA, terrorists, primarily foreign elements supported by local collaborators, have successfully targeted pro-government tribal leaders, journalists and other civilians, apart from the Pakistan Army. While initial estimates mentioned an estimated 600 Taliban/Al Qaeda operatives hiding in FATA, recent official statements claim that the figure has dropped to 100-150. If this were actually the case, there could be little justification for the presence of the at least 80,000 troops in the area, or explanation for the continuously rising trends in fatalities.
Recent operations demonstrate that the Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives remain in possession of, or have access to, sophisticated arms and ammunition. Thus, for instance, on September 13, 2005, troops seized a large cache of explosives and ammunition after raiding a madrassa (seminary) near Miranshah in North Waziristan, which was being run by a relative of Taliban ‘commander’ Jalaluddin Haqqani. 21 people, including 11 foreigners, were arrested during the raid. "We have recovered 15 truckloads of ammunition and weapons from there," Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain disclosed after the raid. Confirming access to weapon supplies, Gul Mohammed, a ‘commander’ for the Jaish-e-Muslimeen (Army of Muslims), a splinter group of the Taliban, told the Christian Science Monitor, "Both the Taliban and Jaish have weapons and arsenal which were being piled up in the past several decades; we have enough for centuries to come."
Pakistan, within whose territory the Taliban and Al Qaeda have regrouped rather well, says that it has killed 353 militants in its border areas between March 2004 and September 2005. Some 175 of these were reportedly foreigners, including Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens and Arabs. Among the notables whose presence has been reported in the area is Tahir Yuldashev of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The Awami National Party leader, Lateef Afridi, claimed on TV in the third week of September 2005 that, in the last great congregation arranged by Yuldashev in the wilderness of Waziristan, some members of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Government in Peshawar were also present.
Further confirmation of the presence of ‘high-value’ targets in FATA emerged when authorities claimed that Egyptian Abu Hamza Rabia, who reportedly commanded Al Qaeda’s international operations, and four others were killed when bomb-making material stored at their hideout detonated accidentally on December 2. Subsequent news reports, however, suggested that he was killed in a U.S. missile attack, and local residents reportedly found at least two pieces of shrapnel at the blast scene inscribed with identification details of the Hellfire missile, which is carried by the U.S. Air Force’s unmanned, remote-controlled Predator aircraft. Pakistani journalist Hayatullah Khan, who reported that Rabia was killed by a US missile and took photographs of the fragments of the weapon, was subsequently abducted by ‘unidentified gunmen’. Islamabad, responsive to domestic public opinion, has denied that U.S. drone aircraft had carried out missile strikes within its territory in the past and Washington has, not surprisingly, refused to comment. The presence of U.S. drones, incidentally, has been reported in the FATA before. Thus, in the first week of May 2005, Al Qaeda operative Haitham al-Yemeni was killed by a missile fired from an unmanned Central Intelligence Agency-operated drone at Toorikhel in North Waziristan. Again, US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan killed at least 24 terrorists and destroyed two vehicles in a missile attack in the Lawara Mandi area of North Waziristan on July 14.
Despite occasional successes, Pakistani troops, with a fair measure of assistance from the U.S. military across the border in Afghanistan, have largely been unable to move out of their fortified positions to carry out area domination exercises, with the result that a large expanse of territory continues to remain under the influence of the Taliban-backed terrorists. In many places, the security forces have been pulled out and the offices of the political administration have also been moved to safer locations. President Musharraf’s operational strategy has been unable to garner little political support outside his own clique and local loyalties have vacillated between the two poles of violence – the Army and the militants. The state is, thus, clearly on a retreat in the absence of a clear strategy.
Islamabad’s policy in Waziristan remains a curious mixture of force, economic sanctions and political engagement. And none of these appears to be leading to order and stability in the region. In order to secure the loyalty of the tribes, some of whom easily identify with the idiom of money and procured engagement, the military has offered generous amounts to tribal leaders. While the authorities hitherto used to hand out construction contracts to tribal leaders as inducement, cash is now the preferred mode of enticement.
Securing the surrender of Taliban/Al Qaeda operatives has been a major part of the Army’s non-military strategy. On December 3, Maulana Ajab Noor, a former ‘commander’ against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980s, along with hundreds of supporters, surrendered to the political administration and pledged allegiance to Islamabad. Earlier, 34 ‘wanted tribal militants’ had surrendered in Miranshah on November 28. In most of these cases, acquiescence has involved a pact among tribal elders, clerics and the political administration. The Government had also offered, on March 3, 2005, to buy weapons at market price from the tribesmen in South Waziristan, intending to purchase anti-aircraft guns, missiles, mortars, rocket launchers, landmines, hand-grenades, light machine guns and AK-47 assault rifles, according to the local administrator, Khan Bukhsh.
However, the problem with procured surrenders and induced loyalties is their capricious nature. There are far too many complexities within the local power centers and past trajectories have shown that loyalties change rapidly, though transient patriotism is easily induced. Maulana Sadiq Noor, described as a "key Al Qaeda facilitator", is not party to the latest surrender scenario, and the deal is consequently expected to be uncertain and the "newly loyal" tribesmen are bound to be at Noor’s mercy. And while Taliban associate Baitullah Mehsud surrendered on February 7, 2005, allegedly for a payment of PKR 20 million, Abdullah Mehsud, another Taliban-linked leader closely linked to the Binoria seminary in Karachi, remains at large. Earlier, Nek Muhammad, whose surrender in April 2004 was a widely publicized event, turned his back on the Army and eventually had to be neutralised with a missile on June 17, 2004.
Furthermore, an unambiguous lack of trust in Islamabad prevails in FATA, as in Balochistan and the Northern Areas. A tribal council in FATA declared in August 2005 that they "would not cooperate with the authorities either in maintaining law and order or in the implementation of development work as the Government had repeatedly been breaking its promises." A list of pro-Government persons was reportedly circulated with a "warning that they would be eliminated unless they withdrew their support from the Government." Subsequently, many such persons, including former Senator Malik Faridullah, were assassinated.
A spin-off by default of the conflict in FATA is the Pakistan Army’s decision to build roads and develop communication networks in an area hitherto devoid of basic infrastructure. According to the envisaged plan, 26 roads with a length of 711 kilometers would be constructed. Army engineers are to construct 324 kilometers long roads in the Mehsud (tribe) areas and 153 kilometers in the Wazir (tribe) areas of South Waziristan and 234 km roads in North Waziristan.
The truth, however, remains that the Pakistani state has little effective presence in FATA, and the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan are nowhere close to governance or stability. Survival depends largely on the will of outlaws, who operate within the realms either of radicalism or of bribery. General Musharraf made a passionate plea fo an "Islamic renaissance" at the Third Extraordinary Summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Mecca last week. But large parts of his own country are a far cry from a modicum of civilization or order.
The writer is Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management; Assistant Editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict & Resolution.
Courtesy : South Asia Terrorism Portal
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