Pakistan: After the hammer, now the
screws By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - The "Hammer and Anvil" operation was
designed by the United States to trap foreign and Afghan
fighters between US forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan
troops across the border.
It proved a failure,
with the recent high-profile deployment of the Pakistani
army in the South Waziristan tribal area failing to send
anyone of note scuttling from their sanctuaries into
waiting US arms.
Indeed, the Pakistani army had
to back off after sustaining heavy casualties from
angered tribals, and a ceasefire was negotiated under
which tribal elders promised to "register" foreigners,
who would in turn be allowed to stay in the tribal area
provided that they promised not to engage in resistance
activities. This was widely perceived as a ploy.
The US was understandably not satisfied with
this outcome, let alone that no foreigners have bothered
to take advantage of the "amnesty", and it exerted more
pressure on its "trusted ally" in the "war on terror" to
do better.
So now there is plan B, in terms of
which the US military, like the tribals, will treat the
artificially created Durand Line that separates
Afghanistan and Pakistan more as an inconvenience than
as a legal barrier. At the same time, the Pakistan army
is reported to be mobilizing for another military
excursion into the tribal areas. And it, too, will cross
the border as it sees fit.
On Monday, according
to tribal sources who spoke to Asia Times Online, US
forces intruded into North Waziristan, resulting in the
death of two tribals in a skirmish.
Prior to
this, there have been reports of US forces crossing over
to villages in the Datakhail area, and a tribal chief by
the name of Malik Noor Khan was arrested in the Bacha
Mela area (North Waziristan) . He is being interrogated
in connection with the whereabouts of Maulana Jalaluddin
Haqqani - a former Taliban minister and now a key
resistance figure - and other foreign fighters.
According to sources in North Waziristan, Pakistani Army
and paramilitary forces turned a blind eye to the US
patrols, which returned to Afghanistan of their own
accord.
The Pentagon has acknowledged that it
will engage in "hot pursuit" raids across the border,
but Pakistani authorities, sensitive to local concerns,
have routinely denied that they have given approval for
such incursions. They have even gone so far as to lodge
official complaints when cross-border raids have taken
place.
Once more into the breech Fresh
contingents of Pakistani armed forces have been sent to
Wana (South Waziristan), Miranshah (North Waziristan)
and Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan in North West Frontier
Province, but officials close to the military say they
fear they are "walking into a death trap". About 20,000
troops were deployed for the South Waziristan operation.
The official figure for causalities in the South
Waziristan operation is 50 soldiers killed, but
conversations with tribals in the area - even allowing
for exaggeration - indicate that this figure could be 10
times higher. In addition, several officers and a number
of soldiers refused to fight against the tribals.
Stories abound of Pakistani officials being
kidnapped, although the government has only confirmed
12. Scores were released after negotiations. There is
also the story of Lieutenant-Colonel Azam Cheema and his
unit, which was hushed up in the media. They were
captured when they tried to attack some insurgents, and
all were roughed up and humiliated while in detention.
They were freed after long negotiations.
In an
effort to delay the military from starting a new
campaign, a 4,000-strong tribal lashkar (militia)
was due to start operations in South Waziristan on
Wednesday to capture foreign nationals - mainly from
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya and some Arab countries
- and have them register or face expulsion from the
country.
Syed Mehmood Shah, the secretary of the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the collective name
for Pakistan's seven tribal areas, said on Monday that
if the lashkar failed to produce results, then
Pakistani forces would move into action.
The
militia initiative appears doomed, though. The
semi-autonomous tribals resent what they see as
interference by the military in their affairs, and there
is strong support for the Afghan resistance movement,
including Pashtuns and foreigners. Members of the
lashkar are unlikely to have the stomach to take
on their tribal comrades in serious combat.
From
the time the resistance against US-led forces in
Afghanistan started in late 2001, the ousted Taliban
leadership had to decide where they could establish the
nucleus of their operations without fear of being
hounded by either the US or Pakistan. They settled on
the mountainous terrain starting in Argun in Afghanistan
and stretching to Razmak in Pakistan (the whole belt on
both side of the divide is populated with Wazir tribes).
On the Afghan side the area is known as the Shawal, a
barren, uninhabited no-man's land, while on the Pakistan
side (which also includes an area called the Shawal) the
mountains are settled by sympathetic tribals.
In
this region, the nucleus - commanders of Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami, al-Qaeda and the Taliban -
have met to thrash out coordinated strategies for the
resistance in Afghanistan. Beyond rounding up foreign
fighters of limited strategic or intelligence use, it is
these "high value targets" that the US would dearly like
to round up.
To an extent, the US has been
successful, as the nucleus has been forced to split and
can no longer gather with impunity. According to tribal
leaders Asia Times Online has spoken to, this has had an
effect on the central leadership of the resistance, and
one of its major problems today is a lack of an overall
coordinated strategy as field commanders have been
isolated from the leadership.
Nevertheless, the
US wants to catch or wipe out the resistance leadership
completely, hence the leaning on Pakistan for a new
operation in the tribal areas, where the mood is tense
and defiant.
Already, one tribal leader, Nek
Mohammed, a former Taliban commander (of Pakistani
origin) has warned the Pakistan Army that if it wants to
fight, the tribals are ready.
And 70 clerics in
Islamabad have put their names to a ruling that any
Pakistani soldiers killed while fighting tribals would
go to hell, while tribals dying fighting against the
army would go to paradise. This has gathered pace, with
more than 3,000 clerics having added their names.
This correspondent also has personally seen a
letter written in Arabic by a "high value target", Tahir
Yuldevish of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan,
thanking the clerics for their support in issuing the
ruling.
The stage is set, then for another
showdown in the tribal areas, with the likelihood that
this one will be even more bloody and more widespread
than the first one in South Waziristan - according to
Asia Times Online sources, the command of the new battle
is in the hands of an Arab fighter named Abu Lais, and
this time hi-tech and heavy ammunition will be used. The
Pakistani army has been put on notice.
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