Battle with the Bad Guys

Few people seem to realize that the Pakistan army's military operation to dislodge the Pakistani Taliban militants from the Swat Valley has caused about 2.5 million people to flee and seek refuge elsewhere. This vast and sudden movement of people is the world's biggest since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. About 80 percent of these internally displaced people have been accommodated with friends, families and even total strangers because the government of Pakistan was utterly unprepared for this humanitarian disaster.

The good news is that the Pakistan army has reportedly secured the Swat Valley by ousting the Pakistani Taliban fighters, killing more than 1000 of them and capturing the city of Mingora. It took almost two months and 40,000 troops to do the job, with more than 100 soldiers killed in the clashes. This was an important battle the Pakistani army had to win to demonstrate its resolve and capability.

But victory came at a heavy cost to the civilian population. Because the army is primarily trained and equipped to conduct conventional warfare, it used a very heavy-handed and inappropriate approach to fighting the insurgents. By using heavy artillery, helicopter gunships and fighter bombers, it wreaked havoc on towns and villages, killing many civilians and destroying a lot of private property and the little infrastructure that existed.

Although there has been a public mood change in support of the government's military campaign, this could quickly change if the government fails to help rebuild what it destroyed and resettle the millions of IDPs quickly. Analysts estimate that the reconstruction could cost up to $US3billion.

But there is worse news to come. Having ousted the Taliban from Swat, the army is under heavy pressure from Washington to turn its attention to South Waziristan, the home base of the Pakistani Taliban as well as probably one of the most important havens for the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida.

Accordingly, on Sunday the government announced that a "comprehensive and decisive operation" would be launched to eliminate the Pakistani Taliban. But the forthcoming military clash in Waziristan will not be as easy as in Swat: it will be a long, difficult and nasty campaign, costly in men and materiel.

South Waziristan, about three times the size of the ACT, is mountainous and rugged, with deep gorges and steep slopes. There are no big settlements and towns as in Swat. This is ideal insurgency terrain. As this is the Pakistani Taliban's heartland, its militants will fight hard, and they will be doing so on home ground as opposed to Swat, where they were outsiders. They can expect a degree of support from the local population, which will not look kindly on the Punjabi-dominated Pakistani army - seen as foreigners - coming in uninvited and inevitably bombing innocent civilians.

Complicating the task of defeating the Pakistani Taliban is the presence of the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida, which no doubt will give military support to their ideological brothers-in-arms. Moreover, having moved into the area about eight years ago after being ousted from Afghanistan, the Afghan Taliban and al-Qa'ida have had time to dig themselves in by building tunnels, hideouts and fortifications. They will be waiting for the Pakistani army.

They will all fight hard: the Afghan Taliban and al-Qa'ida to protect this vital launching area for attacks against coalition forces across the border in Afghanistan, and the Pakistani Taliban because losing Waziristan would be a fatal blow to their campaign to overthrow the government in Islamabad. We can expect many more suicide bombings - now an almost daily occurrence - against innocent civilians across Pakistan in retaliation against the military campaign.

The good news for the Pakistan government is that the Pakistani Taliban is divided. But even more important is the army's change of attitude. As a Pakistani brigadier recently told me, now that there is a national consensus on opposing the Taliban (which did not exist under Pervez Musharraf), the army is determined to do the job required of it.

The outcome of the battle for Waziristan will have an important effect on the war in Afghanistan, and this should be of considerable interest to Australia's 1500 military personnel in Afghanistan, who have to confront the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters coming down from Pakistan's mountains to kill them.

Australia's recent emergency support of $144 million will help Pakistan deal with the difficult task of managing the millions of IDPs. Pakistan needs all the international help it can get to deal with this difficult situation.

President Asif Zardari will have to show resolve and commitment to this all-important battle, which the Pakistani army must win. A military victory in Waziristan would be a body blow to the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida; losing would extend the misery of all the people in the region.
Claude Rakisits heads an independent consultancy, Geopolitical Assessments, and has been working on issues related to Pakistan for more than 25 years.