With the preordained collapse of the peace deal, violence has returned to Swat District in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Full fledged military operations were launched on May 8, 2009, with the offensive coming after Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani announced, a day earlier during his address to the nation, that the Government had called out the Security Forces (SFs) to fight the militants, and appealed to the people to back the decision. The Government, he added, had given enough opportunity for the Taliban to lay down arms and eschew violence.

The Inter-Services Public Relations Director General, Major General Athar Abbas, stated at a Press briefing in Rawalpindi on May 8, that the military had launched a "full-scale operation" in Swat and the Taliban were on the run. More than 140 militants have been killed in Swat during the preceding 24 hours, he stated. Abbas added, further,

After the complete breakdown of law and order and the non-adherence of the militants to the peace deal in Swat Valley, the Army was called out in aid of the civil power to eliminate the militants and restore the writ of the Government... The operation will continue until such time as we have not liberated the people of Swat from the clutches of the militants. The military will not leave unless it is taken over by the civil administration and the writ of the Government is restored.

He also stated that the militants were attempting to block the exodus of innocent civilians by preventing their departure through coercion, roadblocks and holding people hostage. According to Reuters, he said there were 4,000 to 5,000 militants in Swat, including Uzbeks and Tajiks. Abbas also said 12,000 to 15,000 Army personnel were taking part in the operation and there was no need to pull out troops from the eastern border as a sufficient number of troops had been deployed in the disturbed areas.

On the ground, intense violence continues to afflict the NWFP, although the guns had fallen relatively silent in Swat since the ‘peace deal’ was announced on February 16, 2009. 1,772 people, including 470 civilians and 1,131 militants, have already died in the province in 2009 (till May 10). Since May 6 alone, at least 315 militants, 40 civilians and nine soldiers have died in Swat (the categorization is based on official declarations. No independent confirmation of the identity of militants is available). Major General Abbas said the militants had abducted over 100 individuals, killed 30 soldiers, carried out four suicide and eight improvised explosive device attacks, looted six banks, destroyed three Police Stations and one electricity Grid Station and damaged two schools, after the peace agreement. The military disclosed that the Taliban carried out patrolling, set up check-posts, kidnapped for ransom, killed, and damaged private properties, violating the peace deal.

The deteriorating state of play since last week could lead to increasing violence and greater displacement across Swat and the adjoining Districts, which had been relatively peaceful since the peace deal on February 16. More than one million people have already left their homes in the violence-hit Malakand region, after a Taliban surge and the military response, the NWFP Environment Minister Wajid Ali Khan said in Peshawar on May 8. Major General Abbas said the Army had taken measures to prevent civilian casualties, but said "no guarantee can be given that there will be no collateral damage." The provincial Government estimates between 150,000 to 200,000 people have already arrived in safer areas of the province over the last few days (reported on May 8), with another 300,000 already on the march or about to leave, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees. UNHCR noted that those fleeing the latest escalation of hostilities in Lower Dir, Buner and Swat join another 555,000 previously displaced Pakistanis who had fled their homes in the tribal areas and NWFP. The refugee crisis is expected to worsen in the coming days as fighting escalates in Swat and other areas of the Frontier.

Latest reports indicate that the Khawazkhela and Chamtalai areas in Swat had been secured by the SFs. The SFs have focused on militant hideouts in many areas, including Malokabad, Shahdarra, Rung Mohallah, Rajabad, Zamrud Mine, Qazi Baba, Watkai, Naway Killay, Ingoro Dherai, Takhtaband, Balogram and Qambar. Troops are currently targeting the militants’ training camps on the mountain strongholds, ammunition dumps and command and communication centers. "Special care has been taken to strike identified targets and those which are away from populated areas," military spokesman Major General Abbas said. The Taliban, on its part, has regrouped rather well. On May 6, militants were seen patrolling the streets of Mingora, the main town in Swat. Furthermore, Taliban militants who came down from the mountains late on May 5, occupied the homes of local residents and were, reportedly, controlling many strategic points in the Valley. More ominously, the Taliban has planted countless landmines and explosive devices around the populated areas of Swat to stop the people from leaving their homes and were using women and children as human shields against the military operation, a Federal Cabinet meeting was told on May 6.

The military has stated that the Taliban resistance in the adjoining Buner District had been reduced considerably, but militants were maintaining positions at Sultanwas and Pir Baba. Despite the reverses, however, sources indicate that the Taliban have a considerable presence in Buner, including militants from south Punjab, as well as Uzbek and other foreign militants. The military spokesman said the resistance the Taliban had put up and their weapons – assault rifles, anti-aircraft missiles and mortars – showed they had come to Buner with the intention to stay. He said locals had confirmed that foreigners were also present in Buner, and were fighting the SFs along with the Taliban. Brigadier Fayyaz Mehmood Qamar, who is in charge of military operations in Buner, claimed, on May 3, that the operations would be completed within a week. He said there were few local militants, while Uzbek militants were present in large numbers, putting up a stiff resistance.

Military operations are also underway in Lower Dir District, where the Taliban are reportedly in control of the eastern part that connects with the Swat Valley. The Taliban also operate a training camp in one of the hills in Lower Dir. While the Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed, on April 27, that the District had been cleared of militants, intermittent reports since then, quoting residents, stated that clashes were still taking place. Lower Dir is strategically significant since it is bordered by Swat to the east and the Bajaur Agency in FATA to the west. U.S. officials say the "Taliban domination of Lower Dir could create a pipeline for fighters from Swat to reach the battlefields of Afghanistan" while Pakistani officials "fear the same route could be used in reverse, to move Taliban fighters from bases in the mountains near the Afghan border to within striking distance of Pakistan's plains."

An operation has also been launched against the Taliban in the Shen Dhand, Tor Chappar, Sunni Khel, Bosti Khel and Akhorwal areas of Darra Adamkhel, the Frontier’s weapons bazaar. Further, in Shangla District, SFs attacked militants’ hideouts in Loisar and secured two dominating mountain heights called Point 2245 and 2266 on May 9.

The Taliban-led militancy in the Frontier not only challenges the writ of the Government but also threatens to accelerate Pakistan’s collapse as a nation-state. The loss of Swat, which is barely 100 miles from national capital Islamabad, to the Taliban-al Qaeda combine, has generated a fear that this could lead to an implosion of the state itself, with perilous repercussions for regional and global security. The peace deal and introduction of Sharia (Islamic law) in Swat District and Malakand Division must be viewed in the context of a failing state apparatus in Pakistan. The disastrous peace deal was an unambiguously desperate move to escape militancy in the Frontier, and an indication that the SFs were either unwilling or incapable of fighting Islamist militancy. The simple truth is that, in Swat, around 4,000-5,000 militants (there is still no accepted official figure) defeated the SFs, whose numbers were at least four times as many, over about 17 months of intense fighting. (The Army was deployed in Swat in July 2007. However, till November 10, 2007, it was only assisting the Police and Paramilitary Forces, who were conducting operations against the militants. It was only on November 11, 2007, that President Pervez Musharraf had announced that the Army had taken over the anti-militancy drive under emergency regulations.)

Successive regimes in Pakistan have resorted to a muddled approach of alternating military operations and peace accords. Most peace deals with militants in the past few years, be it in the Frontier or FATA, have quickly collapsed, only serving to embolden the forces of radical Islam, be it in Afghanistan, Pakistan or elsewhere, in the brief hiatus of diminished hostilities. Dialogue and short-lived peace deals have been tried again and again, only to have the Taliban return to the areas stronger than before. More importantly, the fairly substantial presence of military and paramilitary forces in the region has not led to a modicum of stability. In fact, the seventh-largest Army in the world has failed comprehensively in dealing with the multiple internal security challenges confronting the nation.

Islamabad, for the moment, has again swung to the belief that force is necessary. How long this remains the case is to be seen. There has been a strategic failure in Pakistan and elsewhere in South Asia when it comes to neutralising insurgencies of this kind, and an unwillingness to accept the plain truth that, without forcefully neutralising the insurgency, there is little likelihood that a political approach or counter-insurgency strategy will succeed.

While the Taliban may have over-stated their case after the peace deal, by a blatant display of their prowess through their actions in Buner, Swat and Lower Dir, the reality is that the state is far too weak to counter them.

The latest military offensive was launched under severe global pressure at a time when President Asif Ali Zardari was on a visit to the United States. The Commander of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, had reportedly told US officials in late April that the following two weeks were to be "critical to determining whether the Pakistani Government will survive." He also stated, "The Pakistanis have run out of excuses..." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on April 22 that Pakistan was facing an "existential threat" from Islamic militants. She said the Government in Islamabad was ceding territory and "basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists". Under intense pressure from the US administration, everyone in Islamabad now seems to be making the ‘right noises’. While Prime Minister Gilani has said it is a battle for the survival of Pakistan, the CoAS, General Ashfaq Kayani, declared that the Army would fight till "decisive ascendancy" had been achieved in Swat. President Asif Ali Zardari had stated, in Washington on May 7, that military operations would continue till normalcy was restored in Swat.

Will the military operations be sustained and carried to their logical conclusion – the neutralisation of the Taliban? Much of the answer to this lies in the trajectory of violence in NWFP and elsewhere in Pakistan and also whether Pakistan is able to sever its bond with radical Islam. There is bound to be a severe backlash following the launch of military operations in Swat and elsewhere in Frontier. In fact, the success of military operations in Swat is closely linked to the trajectory of violence in other Districts of the Frontier and in the other provinces. The Swat division of the Taliban is closely linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda network across Pakistan. In order to reduce the pressure in the Frontier, the Taliban-al Qaeda combine will, in the coming weeks, resort to violence and subversion throughout Pakistan, including, specifically, the urban areas. Furthermore, the Taliban has already vowed to ‘eliminate’ the country's top leadership, including President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani and their close family members. "We thought that being a member of a religious family, Gilani will support our demand of implementing Sharia in the Malakand Division, but instead he has announced an all-out war against us, which has angered our commanders as well as fighters," an unnamed Taliban commander told The News. He warned that Gilani's hometown, Multan, and the tomb of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto might also be targeted by the militants. He claimed, further, "Besides, the personnel and installations of security forces, we have now also included civilian rulers in our hit list. We will definitely need some time to plan our actions but it is not impossible for us and we have all the means to implement our plan of attack anywhere in Pakistan."

The Pakistan Army has failed earlier, before the peace deal was signed, to neutralise the Taliban in the NWFP. Another inconclusive campaign will be disastrous well beyond the Frontier.

The writer is a Research Fellow at Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi, India.

Printer-Friendly Version