ISLAMABAD - The United States has been pressing Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks
to do more in the fight against terrorism. But a decade after the launch of the
US-led "war on terror", Pakistan has finally thrown the same phrase back at the
US, urging international forces to capture Taliban militants who are attacking
Pakistan from inside Afghanistan.
Pakistan's military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said on October 17 that
Afghan and the US-led forces had failed to hunt down Maulvi Fazlullah, a
Taliban cleric responsible for a spate of cross-border raids despite repeated
requests by Pakistani military and political leadership.
On Thursday, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
stepped on to Pakistan soil after reiterating earlier in Kabul, in unusually
blunt language, that the Pakistani government, military and intelligence
services must "take the lead" in fighting Pakistan-based insurgents but also in
encouraging Afghan militants to reconcile. In two days of talks with Pakistan's
military and civilian leaders in Islamabad, Clinton was expected to deliver the
message that Pakistan must be part of the solution to the Afghan conflict.
Major-General Athar Abbas, in an October 17 interview with Reuters pinpointed
al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked Mullah Fazlullah - aka Mullah Radio, for his fiery
radio broadcasts - as being one of the most wanted militant commanders
operating from Afghanistan and responsible for the series of cross border
ambushes conducted from eastern Afghanistan that have killed dozens of
Pakistani soldiers in the Dir and Chitral districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
province.
''The attacks in which Taliban militants loyal to Maulvi Fazlullah took part
have killed about 100 members of Pakistan's security forces. We have given
locations and information about these groups to the Afghanistan government and
the International Security Assistance Force [ISAF]. But apparently there has
been no action taken against them because the problem refuses to go away'',
said Athar Abbas.
Maulvi Fazlullah, in his latest interview with Reuters on October 20, vowed to
return to Pakistan to wage war in his former stronghold Swat Valley, and said
he doubted the government was sincere about peace talks with militants. ''We
sacrificed our lives, left our homes and villages for the sake of Shariah
(Islamic Law) and will do whatever we can to get Shariah implemented in the
Malakand region [of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa Province] and rest of Pakistan.''
Army troops and the Frontier Corps personnel had been deployed in areas
bordering Afghanistan to stop militant attacks from across the border,
Pakistan's military spokesman told Radio Pakistan earlier in the week, adding
there appeared to be no Afghan army or ISAF presence in the vast area from
where the Taliban militants were operating against Pakistan. Most of the cross
border attacks were carried out by Taliban militants who have safe havens in
Kunar, Nooristan and Nangarhar areas of Afghanistan. ''The issue has been taken
up with Afghan army personnel and ISAF, but no effective operation has been
seen in these areas,'' the spokesman said.
Nevertheless, many in the diplomatic circles of Islamabad view the military
spokesman's statement as a tit-for-tat move to counter the growing American
pressure on Islamabad to take on the Haqqani network, reportedly based in the
North Wazirstan region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of
Pakistan.
The statement has drawn a parallel between the refusal of the Pakistani
military leadership to fight the Haqqani network and the US-led forces'
reluctance to act against Mullah Fazlullah. Just as the Haqqani network is
using Pakistani territory as a base to launch cross-border attacks in
Afghanistan, Fazlullah is using Afghan terrain to target the Pakistani security
forces.
Beyond the point-scoring, however, it remains an undeniable fact that Mullah
Fazlullah and his militants have managed to regroup in Nuristan to become as
dangerous as ever. Fazlullah was the commander of Pakistani Taliban in the
picturesque Swat Valley, also described as the Switzerland of Pakistan. Swat,
located just 160 kilometers from Islamabad, the federal capital, became a focal
point of Pakistan's war against terror in 2009, with the army launching a
massive military action, titled ''Operation Black Thunderstorm'', forcing
Fazlullah and his private army to flee. Fazlullah regrouped in Afghanistan and
established strongholds in Nuristan and Kunar, posing a threat to Pakistan once
again.
According Major-General Abbas, Mullah Fazlullah is a prime example of the
classic problem faced by Pakistan's military. ''Militant leaders can simply
melt away in the mountainous frontier area in the face of army offensives. When
they ran away from Swat, the Fazlullah group was in tatters and was scattered.
But as they got time and support in Afghanistan, Fazlullah and his group are
trying to re-enter the Swat Valley through Dir'', Abbas said, referring to a
border region which was relatively stable before Fazlullah's men recently
staged attacks on Pakistani security forces. ''Besides carrying out bombings,
Fazlullah is believed to be responsible for a spate of kidnappings in FATA.
Given how dangerous his presence is, it is entirely appropriate that Pakistan
has asked the Allied Forces in Afghanistan to tackle him on urgent basis'', the
military spokesman added.
Abbas's statement, however, belies repeated claims by the Pakistani military
and political elite, including the army chief and the prime minister, that
Taliban militants in Swat had been defeated in the military operation there in
2009. It was back in July of that year that Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani
claimed the Pakistani security forces had achieved their main objective in Swat
by recapturing its administrative seat of Mingora, which had been seized by the
militants belonging to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the
Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), led by Mullah Fazlullah.
The military victory in Swat was crucial from the point of view of a larger
front which al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants had been trying to create in
Swat. Apprehensions expressed by independent analysts after the operation was
concluded that the senior leadership of the Swat chapter of the TNSM and the
TTP could retaliate to stage a comeback because it remains intact, have proven
logical. In fact, the three previous military operations by the Pakistan Army
(Operation Rah-e-Haq I, Rah-e-Haq II and Rah-e-Haq III in October 2007, July
2008 and January 2009 respectively) had also failed to contain the militants.
It was on November 17, 2009 that Mullah Fazlullah surfaced in Afghanistan and
threatened to re-ignite insurgency in the Swat Valley. ''I have reached
Afghanistan safely'', he told a BBC Urdu's correspondent by phone, adding, ''We
are soon going to launch full-fledged punitive raids against the Pakistan Army
in Swat.'' Fazlullah became a house hold name in Swat due to the fierce
resistance his privately raised army gave the Pakistan army when it launched
the military operation in the valley on October 22, 2007 to rout the TNSM/TTP
militants and dismantle their jihadi infrastructure.
Even at that time, the Pakistani authorities believed Fazlullah had
well-established links with Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives. It was on July 13,
2007, just two days after the military operation against the fanatic clerics of
Lal Masjid in Islamabad came to an end, that then president General Pervez
Musharraf approved a plan for immediate deployment of the paramilitary forces
in Swat to crush the growing militancy. More than 3,000 Pakistani troops were
sent to Swat in October 2007 to confront Taliban forces that were amassing in
the district in a bid to impose Shariah law in the valley. The Pakistani troops
were deployed to the hill-tops of the rugged terrain.
However, the Fazlullah forces, who were backed by the TTP militants, soon
proved to be the nemesis of the Pakistan army, with many of its soldiers either
beheaded publicly or killed in suicide attacks in the two weeks after the
operation was launched. On October 25, barely two days after the operation
began, 33 soldiers were killed and 22 others injured in Mingora as two suicide
bombers rammed their explosives-laden car into a truck carrying the
paramilitary Frontier Constabulary personnel. The attack followed a warning by
Fazlullah against the deployment of the forces in the area.
The Mullah told his followers on FM radio as soon as the security forces
entered the area that the troops had been deployed to kill innocent people in a
ruthless military operation and therefore should be resisted with full might.
This led to an intense series of gun battles between the well-armed TNSM/TTP
militants led by Fazlullah and the Pakistani security forces in four
subdivisions of Swat - Matta, Kabal, Charbagh and Khwaza Khela. The fighting
spread to the hills almost immediately, with the militants attacking the
military posts and the troops targeting their hideouts.
The situation took an ominous turn when Fazlullah joined hands with the
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, led by Baitullah Mehsud at that time, in a bid to
provide an umbrella to all insurgent movements operating in several tribal
agencies and settled areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Fazlullah was thus made the amir
of the Swat chapter of TTP. A defiant Mullah subsequently announced that he and
his followers would now be toeing the TTP chief, Baitullah Mehsud's line,
whether they are signing a peace pact with the government or dumping a
ceasefire agreement.
The battle in Swat lasted for the next six months, before the Pakistan People's
Party (PPP) government assumed power in general elections and signed a peace
deal with Fazlullah on May 21, 2008. It took the coalition government,
comprising the secular Awami National Party and the PPP, and the Fazlullah-led
militants three rounds of talks over two weeks to reach the peace accord. But
things only got worse as Fazlullah used these deals to his own advantage by
extending his area of influence and strengthening his positions in Swat,
ultimately forcing the government to order a massive military operation which
turned Swat into a conflict zone.
Almost two years after the ''successful completion'' of Operation Black
Thunderstorm, in what would be a huge embarrassment for the army, Swat is again
threatened with a possible revival of the Taliban-led insurgency. At the same
time, however, the case with the US-led allied forces in Afghanistan is no
different as they have failed to defeat the Taliban of Afghanistan in their
decade-long war. Analysts believe the key reason behind the failure to defeat
the Taliban fighters on both sides of the border is the growing mistrust
between the ''once most trusted allies'' who are not ready to trust each other
today.
An October 18, 2011 editorial note by Pakistan's leading English newspaper,
Dawn, explains the current predicament in these words:
''Pakistan's
requests that the ISAF and Afghan leaderships take action against Pakistani
Taliban who have found safe havens in Afghanistan now simply mirror demands
from the latter that Pakistan go after Afghan Taliban operatives in the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan. Where, then, will
these mutual accusations lead? Is the failure to go after Mullah Fazlullah and
others a deliberate one, a pressure tactic to encourage Pakistan to dismantle
Afghan Taliban safe havens on this side of the border? If so, it has not
succeeded yet and against the backdrop of disturbing news from the Afghan
battlefield, a pending American withdrawal, and an already worrying domestic
security situation, what will make Pakistan respond to ISAF and Afghan demands?
''Whatever the answers, the current do-nothing approach of all players doesn't
seem to be solving the problem. Instead, it might simply be causing them to dig
their heels in further.
Amir Mir is a senior Pakistani journalist and the author of several
books on the subject of militant Islam and terrorism, the latest being The
Bhutto murder trail: From Waziristan to GHQ.
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