| |
A war short on substance, long on
form
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - As the months and the years drag on,
and the United States is no closer to bringing order to
Afghanistan, desperate measures are being taken in an
attempt to breathe some life - and credibility - into
its campaign in the region.
The recent operation
in Angoor Adda, a small Pakistani town on the border
with Afghanistan in South Waziristan Agency in the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas, is a prime example.
Pakistani forces, acting on the directions of the US
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), killed at least
12 and arrested 12 suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda
fighters.
The operation grabbed extensive media
attention, with reports of "Arab" deaths receiving
front-page coverage. Asia Times Online was one of the
very few publications to clearly state that all of the
arrested people were of Central Asian or Afghan origin.
(See Pakistan: FBI rules the
roost of October 4).
The point is, those killed and
arrested were Uzbeks and Afghans, with some local Pakistani
tribals caught in crossfire. At best, these were foot
soldiers for the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the Afghan
resistance war who had fled into Pakistani territory from
coalition soldiers.
Immediately after this
encounter, on the instructions, again, of the FBI,
another operation was conducted in the Diamir area of
northern Pakistan. The director general of the
Inter-Services Public Relations, Major-General Shaukat
Sultan, confirmed this, saying, "The Pakistan army ...
with the help of the local administration, following
'intelligence reports', acted swiftly and dismantled a
camp."
According to Asia Times Online sources,
however, heavy Pakistani army contingents conducted the
operation, but all they found was an empty building that
had allegedly been used by the Harkatul Ansar, a banned
militant outfit fighting in Kashmir.
US Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage, meanwhile, on
Sunday praised Pakistan for the raids and for what its
military has done against suspected terrorist training
camps in the mountainous regions that border
Afghanistan.
"In recent days there have been
some rather significant activities that the Pakistani
forces have taken against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and
I think this is a very good omen and I have no doubt it
will continue," Armitage told reporters in the southern
Afghan city of Kandahar.
A nice soundbite for
people back home in the US, and for the US's favorite
"ally" in the "war on terror", Pakistan, but the hard
truth is that neither operation achieved anything of
consequence, and the US is still essentially shooting in
the dark in Afghanistan.
Certainly, al-Qaeda is
weakened, and has been for some time, but the resistance
movement is still very much alive and well in
Afghanistan, with the Taliban taking the lead role. The
anti-US movement is growing and evolving by the day into
a struggle similar to the one that saw the Taliban fill
the power vacuum created by bickering warlords in 1996.
Grounded in a strong sense of order, nationalism and
fundamental Islamic principles, the movement is
strengthening its hold in the southeast of the country,
where the Taliban has gained - and retained - control of
five important districts over the past few weeks.
Mujahideen veteran Gulbuddin Hekmatyr's
Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), meanwhile, has chalked
out a different strategy. The HIA has announced that its
war will not be against any Afghan. Rather, its aim is
to boot out foreign forces from Afghanistan. Under the
banner of this policy, the HIA has made ceasefire
agreements with local commanders of Eastern Shura in
eastern Afghanistan in the key cities of Jalalabad,
Sorobi, Logar and Kunhar. By brokering these ceasfires,
the HIA's popularity is growing, especially among the
majority Pashtuns, who feel marginalized by the ruling
Northern Alliance-dominated government in Kabul.
These narrow nationalist factors are the driving
force for the incumbent ruling classes in the Pashtun
belt to support the resistance, albeit indirectly.
A tug-of-war situation in Kabul in the seat of
power between the US-backed Hamid Karzai administration
on the one hand and the Russia-Iran-India-backed
Northern Alliance on the other hand is another factor
allowing the resistance to take root in the north of the
country, traditionally Northern Alliance territory. The
recent attacks on US targets in Baghlan are evidence of
this.
And the lame efforts on the part of the US
to create a proxy organization to participate in the
Afghan government, such as the Jaishul Muslim, a
grouping of "moderate" Taliban, appear to be going
nowhere as such an initiative calls for the exclusion of
Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
However, the US
appears set on pursuing the "Taliban" avenue. Reports
emerging from Pakistan claim that former Taliban
minister Mullah Abdul Wakeel Mutawakil has been released
from US custody for him to make contact with Mullah Omar
and negotiate some form of a deal.
With
operations like South Waziristan and Diamir, and
involving the Taliban, it is beginning to look as if the
US would dearly like to set the stage for it to leave
Afghanistan, and with a modicum of its "face" intact.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
