Pakistan: Taliban gain momentum

Most recently, a gun-fight between police and local Taliban in the Peshawar, the capital of the Northwestern Frontier Province (NWFP), has claimed eight lives, and insurgents have attacked NATO targets in the Khyber tribal agency, on the border with Afghanistan.

The Pakistani military is battling local Taliban fighters in Swat Valley, and Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, security agencies are fruitlessly scrambling to locate and free John Solecki, a kidnapped official of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

The Solecki kidnapping mars the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon’s first ever visit to the Pakistani capital. Meanwhile, Balochistan and the NWFP, both bordering Afghanistan, are embroiled in a turmoil that is seeing the government losing control to increasingly radical Islamist influences.

On the political front, the honeymoon is also over. Pakistan's new president, Asif Zardari, and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani are on the outs. The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), one of the largest political parties, is likewise set on a confrontational path with the Pakistani People's Party-led government for allegedly interfering in provincial governments and failing to make good on a promise to restore the country's independent judiciary, which was suspended by former president General Pervez Musharraf. Civil society groups, led by lawyers, are determined to bring their protest rallies to Islamabad on 9 March, to mark the day when Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was illegally suspended in 2007.

Talibanisation in the tribal lands

In Mingora, only some 160 kilometers from Islamabad, all government institutions as well as girls' schools and colleges remain closed down, fearing attack.

Across Swat Valley, approximately 120,000 girls have been prevented from entering educational institutions for over a year, while few elected representative have dared to visit their own constituencies for the last six months, fearing for their lives.

In recent months, radical Islamists have bombed or torched 185 schools across the valley and destroyed around 25 bridges.

While a curfew has remained in place for some two weeks and a military operation is under way in an attempt to restore stability and retake control of the area, shopping malls, hotels, bridges and check points are being blown up on a daily basis.
 
Here the local Taliban seem to have an aggressive media posturing too: Journalists are allowed to film public lashings of "sinners" against the backdrop of Kalashnikov-totting bearded men. However, during one such incident witnessed by ISN Security Watch earlier this month, firing broke out between military troops and the Taliban.

Unlike elsewhere in Pakistan's troubled tribal regions, militants in Swat Valley seem to be of a rather savvy character, effectively using FM radio channels to scare away people and demoralize the government and military personnel. So far, the government has been unsuccessful in blocking the illegal broadcast of these radio campaigns.

It is estimated that some 200,000 residents have been displaced due to fear of the Taliban, the ongoing military operation, curfews and blackouts.

In a move unprecedented since Pakistan joined the US-led war on terror, the Pakistani Taliban have released a list of 43 people "wanted" for crimes punishable under Sharia law. Most of the "wanted" are former and current members of the national and provincial assemblies, and other influential Swat Valley residents.

The decent of Swat Valley - long known for its archeological treasures, art and tourism - into bloody chaos poses a major challenge to the new Pakistani government, and indeed experts themselves are hard put for a solution.

"The Musharraf and Zardari governments have both failed to understand the situation in the Swat region as the valley has no common border with any of the seven tribal regions … The government could neither stop a movement of weapons nor a marriage of convenience between militants and criminals," Senator Zafar Iqbal Jhagra told ISN Security Watch.

The Zardari failure

In an interview with ISN Security Watch, Rehman Malik, the prime minister’s security adviser, said that Islamist militancy was a deadly cocktail of criminals, drug lords and armed clergymen; he also accused Indian consulates in Afghanistan and near the Pakistan border of indirectly funding the militancy. Accusations aside, the deadly cocktail is more than the Zardari government can handle, and the public is not optimistic about the future of the battle.

Over the past 10 months, the government has demonstrated failure, both in terms of policy and strategy in the tribal lands. Prime Minister Gillani, who has yet to visit the trouble-hit regions, told reporters in Davos, Switzerland, that the military operations would run parallel with a political dialogue. However, some critics believe that it is too late now to begin a political process as many politicians and much of the public have little faith that the government can prevail, having done little to boost the liberal elements in these regions.

Afrasyab Khattak, provincial president of the Awami National Party (ANP - a Pashtun nationalist party ruling the NWFP), says the local government there has certain reservations about the military operation. "We believe that the major cause of militancy and extremism in Fata and Pukhtunkhwa is the duality in our Afghan policy. We [Pakistan] pay lip service to peace in Afghanistan, but we tolerate militants' sanctuaries in Fata," he told ISN Security Watch.

While the military's 600-strong Elite Force has refused to do battle in the Swat Valley, militant commander Fazlullah is shelling out money to maintain fighters and weapons supplies.

In late November, the PPP-led government convened a parliamentary session to hammer out a solution. Lawmakers pledged to form a committee to recommend policy guidelines while asking the US and NATO forces to halt drone attacks in the tribal regions.

Despite the government's public optimism for a change of strategy with the new US administration, there has been no indication that Washington will be willing to increase intelligence exchanges or case to engage in unilateral attacks across the border from Afghanistan.

In the meantime, the military is ill-equipped to fight an ideologically driven insurgency, failing even to provide adequate security for its own and UN high-ranking officials in the region. Last year, a US embassy official was attacked in the region; Afghanistan’s ambassador-designate was kidnapped; and most recently, the kidnapping of the UNHCR official.

Farrukh Saleem, a columnist for the Pakistani daily The News, told ISN Security Watch: "An unelected adviser on internal security, friction between the president and PM and lack of political unity among coalition partners clearly points to the absence of short- or medium-term prospect for an effective counter-terror strategy by the PPP-led coalition government."

The military, post-Musharraf

Thanks to the exit of Musharraffrom the scene in August last year, the military has gained more public support, with its new leader, General Pervez Kiani, making a clear effort to distance the army from politics.

Despite the government's loss of control in the tribal areas, the military has maintained its operational focus there. Last month, an Army Corps Commanders Conference resolved to conduct a major military exercise, clearly showing shifting priorities towards professionalism and training. At the same time, General Kiani also recalled all army officers appointed to civilian post during under Musharraf regime.

While the national media was critical of Prime Minister Gillani for failing to visit the tribal areas, the army chief was praised for stopping in to check on troops in the Swat Valley.

"The army is dug deep in carrying out military operations in tribal areas and Swat and cannot afford to involve itself in active politics," General (retd) Talat Masood told ISN Security Watch in a telephone interview.

The real test for the military will come in the next few weeks when political temperatures soar and President Zardari and PML (N) President Nawaz Sharif come face to face in Islamabad.

Inter-Taliban strife

The militancy in tribal areas as well as the Swat Valley is a fructuous campaign against the Pakistan government. However, though the various militant commanders have much in common in terms of ideology and preferred targets, the sectarian daggers have been drawn, with Sunnis and Shia fighting for greater influence over territory, manpower and funding.

Maulana Sufi Mohammad runs a Taliban operation in Swat Valley, a branch of the 1990s Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM) founded to enforce Sharia in the Malakand region. The Taliban here are more radical than other commanders.

"These relatively more intolerant and radical militants run their own Sharia courts, prisons and parallel administrations in Matta, Kabal and Charbagh and don’t hesitate [when it comes] to kidnapping or killing rival Islamists in the nearby areas of influence," Behroz Khan, a veteran journalist based in Peshawar, told ISN Security Watch.

Now Mullah Fazalullah, son-in-law of Maulana Sufi Mohammad, has his own outfit called Tehrik Taliban Pakistan.

Nasir Khan, a journalist from North Waziristan, told ISN Security Watch that Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad are directly challenging Mullah Fazalullah in other tribal areas of Pakistan, but the start of an aggressive military operation last week has muted their rivalry.

However, Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad remain aggressively opposed to Baitullah Mahsud, the most dreaded militant commander from North Waziristan.

According to Khan, the two contain their opposition against the rival militants wherever the military operations and drone attacks against the rival group intensify.

In a similar fashion, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad of Bajaur was earlier challenged by Wali Rahman of Jaish-e-Islam, but the two are no more fighting each other since the launch of a military operation in the region.

Mullah Wazir is another phenomenon in South Waziristan. He is allegedly backed by the government in the fight against foreign militants who have been pushed to the North Waziristan region of Baitullah Mahsud. Wazir may be used later by the government against Baitullah Mahsud, who has served as a source of inspiration for many in the tribal regions, according to local tribal leaders who spoke to ISN Security Watch on condition of anonymity.

A government source in Peshawar told ISN Security Watch that the government may use "friendly" militants against the likes of Baitullah Mahsud and Mullah Fazalullah "gradually at an appropriate time."

However, Kurrum Agency offers a different, bloodier, counter-insurgency model: Analysts allege that the government is using Shia commanders Haji Ali Akbar Turi and Malik Ali Hussain against TTP’s Qari Hussain, the alleged mastermind of a string of suicide bombings in the country.

While the government can exploit the existing fractures among militants, the outcome is likely to be bloody and uncertain, similar to infighting among Afghan warlords after the Soviet exit. At the same time, the lack of a coherent US-Pakistan counter-terror strategy is also uniting the militants and shoving their differences under the rug.

The killings resulting from drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas not only work to unite the militants but also undermine the government and military publicly. Over the past four months, allied NATO troops have launched over 80 drone attacks inside Pakistani territory.