Al-Qaeda braced for a war without end By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD - Richard Holbrooke, the United States special envoy for Afghanistan
and Pakistan who died on Monday aged 69, had come to the realization that the
nine-year war in Afghanistan had to come to an end.
Stopping the war will not be an easy matter. The situation on the ground is not
so simple.
For instance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) claims success
against the Taliban in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, but what has happened is
that al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have stepped into the vacuum and they will
continue the battle.
Similarly, Pakistan claims success in its tribal areas, but a more
defiant and more ideologically motivated group has emerged to take ownership of
the war.
Wali Mohammad, the brother of slain Taliban commander Nek Mohammad (see
The legacy of Nek Mohammed Asia Times Online, July 2004), has taken
over command of militants in South Waziristan.
Last week, army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, accompanied by other top
brass and members of the media, traveled to South Waziristan to showcase the
military's "victory" against militants. They were greeted by four missiles. No
one was injured in the attack, but the message is clear - the militants are
back.
Before last year's operation in South Waziristan, the army struck a peace deal
with the Wazir tribe and singled out the Mehsud tribe led by Hakeemullah
Mehsud, the chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP - Pakistani Taliban).
This isolated the Mehsuds, forcing them to flee to North Waziristan. The
military then took control of Mehsud areas such as Ladha and Makeen.
However, in a twist that illustrates the changing ideologies in the tribal
regions, Wali Mohammad, a Wazir from South Waziristan who is supposed to be a
rival of the Mehsuds, assumed the role of hostility against the army - a move
that stunned many observers.
Wali Mohammad is now the commander of the TTP in South Waziristan and head of
its suicide-bombing wing.
Review of Afghanistan
United States President Barack Obama is set on Thursday to announce a review of
Afghan strategy. "We are in a better place now than we were a year ago," Obama
said late last month at a NATO summit. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
meanwhile, has said that "by all accounts", progress has been made.
On a visit to Afghanistan last week, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told
reporters that he was "convinced that our strategy is working and that we will
be able to achieve the key goals laid out by President Obama".
The review had been compiled by the National Security Council with input from
Holbrooke, General David Petraeus, the US commander in Afghanistan; and other
officials. Obama is expected to restate his pledge to begin drawing down US
combat troop levels next July, a process now scheduled to be completed by the
end of 2014.
According to several administration officials who spoke on the condition of
anonymity, its most positive aspects are based on military reports from
Petraeus, who has described successful clearing operations in and around the
Taliban bastions of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, and
southwestern Helmand province. Petraeus has also cited the elimination, through
killing or capture, of hundreds of Taliban commanders and local political
leaders in raids by US special operations forces.
However, one major development is missing in the assessment.
This month, there was an unsuccessful suicide attack on Nawab Aslam Raisani,
the chief minister of southwestern Balochistan province. It was claimed by the
LJ - the Laskhar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami (International) - a sectarian, anti-Shi'ite
organization that is split into several groups. The international wing is
strongly affiliated with al-Qaeda.
Pakistan's southwest and southwestern Afghanistan are home to the Kandahari
clan, which is mostly loyal to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Despite the
Taliban's strong presence in Helmand and Kandahar in Afghanistan and the
Pakistani Chaman and Quetta regions, al-Qaeda has never been able to find
significant traction among the local Pashtuns. It has sheltered in southeastern
Afghanistan or the northwestern Pakistani tribal areas.
Balochistan had no history of sectarian violence until after 2003, for which a
few ethnic Baloch members of the LJ were accused. The Taliban distanced
themselves from the LJ. For the past several years, Pakistan's southwestern
regions and southwestern Afghanistan were assessed as Taliban territory.
However, an increasing number of militant attacks in Balochistan on NATO's
Afghanistan-bound supplies is a hallmark of al-Qaeda. Most of the attacks have
been carried out in ethnically Baloch areas, where the Pakistani security
forces now believe anti-Pakistan Baloch insurgents and members of the LJ are
collaborating.
The ultra-radical and ruthless LJ already cooperates with the Iranian Jundallah
in Iranian Balochistan and it is now expected to spread its operations to
Kandahar and Helmand to take over the Taliban's fight.
Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf wrote in an article on Sunday that
he had advised the international community to accept a Taliban government, but
it did not listen. In his article in the Wall Street Journal he said, "Had the
world heeded my advice, circumstances would have been quite different."
The Americans also never took the advice in 2001 to engage the Taliban and
isolate al-Qaeda. By 2010, Holbrooke had come to realize this truth, along with
other decision-makers in Washington. But it is too late. The war dispensation
in al-Qaeda's caves in the Pakistani tribal areas is set up in such a way that
if one group of insurgents is pacified, a fresh one will pop up to fill in.
This is a never-ending war.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief and
author of upcoming book Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban 9/11 and Beyond
published by Pluto Press, UK. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
