Taliban plan plays into Pakistan's
hands By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - The insurgency of the past seven
months in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area has
largely been contained as top Taliban officials have
conveyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar's instructions to
stop confrontations with Pakistani forces in the
troubled region.
Asia Times Online contacts in
South Waziristan's district headquarters of Wana say
that all insurgents from the Wazir tribes have stuck to
a truce with Pakistani authorities and vowed to end
insurgency in their areas. Only a single pocket of
resistance under the command of Abdullah Mehsood and his
Central Asian accomplices remains, but that too is now
subject to negotiations.
The
insurgency began in reaction
to Pakistani efforts - at the behest of the United States -
to flush out all foreigners from the region, especially
those with links to al-Qaeda and the Afghan resistance.
The fighting has taken a heavy toll on both sides, and
fueled bitter resentment among tribals. Islamabad's
imposition of economic sanctions on South Waziristan has
also hit hard as trade routes have been cut off.
In the past months the situation had reached an
uneasy stalemate. Most of the foreigners, notably Arabs
and Chechens, had already fled the area, while tribesmen
had retreated to remote positions in the mountains out
of the reach of the army.
At this point top
Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah traveled to South
Waziristan. He stayed in different regions, including
Shakai and Azam Warsak, and met with the leaders of
insurgent tribes, including Haji Omar and Moulvi Abbas
from the Wazir tribe and Abdullah Mehsood from the
Mehsood tribe. He conveyed Mullah Omar's message that
neither Pakistan nor its army were the target of the
mujahideen, therefore the tribals should immediately put
a stop to their attacks on the military.
The
tribal leaders agreed, and publicly announced a truce
with Pakistan and also agreed to allow Pakistani troops
to maintain a presence in the area. After Dadullah's
visit the Corps Commander Peshawar contacted Abdullah
Mehsood to negotiate a truce, but he refused as dozens
of Central Asian fighters are still in his refuge and he
does not want to leave them in the lurch or hand them
over to Pakistani authorities.
Nevertheless,
locals expect relative calm in the region and believe
that sooner or later the Mehsood tribes will also end
their resistance.
Taliban
intervention The Taliban's ties with Pakistan go
back a long way, with Islamabad actively supporting
their emergence and seizure of power in Kabul in 1996.
After September 11, 2001, though, President General
Pervez Musharraf did a U-turn, renounced the Taliban and
threw in his lot with Washington's "war on terror".
The Taliban were quickly driven from power in
late 2001 in the face of the US-led invasion of
Afghanistan in retaliation for them harboring Osama bin
Laden and al-Qaeda training camps. The Taliban put up
little resistance, preferring to conserve their strength
for a guerrilla war, which they began within a matter of
months.
The resistance steadily organized itself
and a coordinated strategy was drawn up, including the
use of suicide attacks for the first time in
Afghanistan. The Taliban also took back several Afghan
cities for a brief period, purely in an attempt to
demoralize the US-backed Afghan government of Hamid
Karzai. In this way Hilmand and Zabul were occupied.
They also aimed to take Khost, but Mullah Omar rejected
the idea for fear of full-scale US retaliation on the
city, which could have turned the people against the
Taliban.
By January this year the resistance was
in full swing, but Mullah Omar decided to change the
course of the entire resistance movement. The decision
was made in consultation with Arab fighters, and the new
strategy was based on several key points:
The Taliban are very well integrated into the Afghan
population, and they have established good contacts
between themselves.
Since the Iraqi resistance has fully engaged the US,
the Afghan guerrillas can take their time to further
build up their strength.
The present low-key situation will be exploited for
a psychological war: the US knows that the enemy is
alive and kicking, but they do not know its next moves.
The Taliban will execute sporadic operations, but
will not respond to any US reaction.
The situation will keep the US and its allies
permanently on edge, and as public support for the
Taliban grows, new alliances will be forged with figures
such as Ismail Khan, the sacked governor of Herat
province, warlord General Rashid Dostum and other
disenchanted segments of Afghan society. Ultimately the
resistance hopes to completely erode all support for
Karzai and his US backers, at which time the Taliban
could strike.
As a part of this strategy the
Taliban decided to shut down all its war bases in
Pakistani territory. As one contact noted, the message
for the government of Pakistan is "see you soon in
Kabul".
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Bureau
Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online. He can be reached at
saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
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