The next phase of counter-militancy

With the first phase of the military offensive to clear militants from South Waziristan now nearing completion, the counter-militancy campaign is expected to transition into the next, more critical phase. This will entail steps to ensure that the gains that have been made are sustainable. It will also mean wrestling with the challenges that have emerged from a remarkably expeditious operation.

Among the most pressing challenges is to stem the wave of violent reprisals that has struck the country and turned Peshawar into a battle zone. Daily bombings, which have already disrupted people’s lives, can strain the public consensus against militancy and shake the public’s resolve to fight it.

Pursuing the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) leaders and fighters who seem to have dispersed into neighbouring Agencies means that the military campaign has now expanded to parts of Orakzai. As militants are using the access into Khyber to unleash a region of terror on Peshawar, “siege” operations are also planned here to restrict and neutralise the movement of militants. Two more Agencies are therefore expected in the next phase to see selective and targeted actions.

What will also be critical in the months ahead are post-conflict efforts that insure that the area can be held and an environment inhospitable to the return of militants is established. Although the military presence will be retained, over time a gradual de-induction of forces will depend on the Frontier Corps being able to assume security responsibilities along with the revival of the traditional political agent-tribal compact.

These will eventually be the exit tickets for the army. The sooner the civil administration can be reconstituted with local support, the easier it will be to start pulling out regular forces. This will be vital to avoid the troops becoming mired in a war of attrition or an unceasing fire-fight.

The South Waziristan operation has proceeded more speedily and with fewer casualties than was anticipated. Security forces secured much of the area within a month of launching the action. The militants have been driven out of their bases, their training centres dismantled and their sanctuaries eliminated.

Two of Operation Rah-e-Nijat’s three core objectives have almost been achieved: re-establishing the state’s writ in a longstanding no-go area and dismantling the command-and-control infrastructure of the TTP. The third objective of creating space for the political authorities in partnership with the local tribes to establish durable control remains an imposing task for the future.

Two elements of the military and political strategy have especially helped in attaining the stated objectives. The first is the “ridgeline approach” that was followed. This meant advancing troops avoided the main roads and instead focused on dominating the heights to secure the valleys – a tactic that caught the militants by surprise. This was buttressed by the reconfiguration of C-130 aircraft with surveillance eye-in-the sky capabilities to ensure accurate intelligence.

The second key factor was that the North Waziristan chapter of the TTP kept away from the battle in the south. Throughout the duration of the offensive in South Waziristan, there was not a single incident of hostility in the North. If that had happened it would have greatly complicated and distracted from the effort in the South.

As in Swat, another two key factors, proved to be decisive: unstinting public and media support for the military action as well as the evacuation of local residents from the area (300,000 inhabitants fled the battle area), which in turn allowed a sustained air and artillery campaign to be undertaken.

The toughest resistance was encountered around and in Kotkai on the eastern axis (leading up to Sararogha) in the three-pronged operation. This was the base from where the militants trained and launched suicide bombers. Sararogha served as the nerve centre of the TTP and their foreign allies.

Meanwhile, the bulk of training centres were discovered and destroyed in Kamigarum on the western axis. The multi-directional strategy helped to destroy the infrastructure of terrorism across a vast swathe of territory and also to establish control in a relatively short period.

The onset of winter, when traditionally two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Mehsud area seasonally migrate to escape the harsh weather and seek employment in the adjoining settled areas of the NWFP, will be a factor that will likely facilitate the campaign to clear the remaining pockets of resistance.

The skeptical view that the operation has made modest progress as it has only scattered the Taliban overlooks and minimises the fact that the militants are on the run, their capabilities have been degraded and their bases and freedom of movement sharply restricted. Their main training, command and communication centres have been neutralised. This means that while the militants are in hiding their effectiveness has been substantially reduced.

TTP spokesmen have declared that their fighters have avoided engaging the army to begin a guerrilla campaign later. This claim is contradicted by the fact that the heavy weapons and large amounts of ammunition that have been left behind suggest a scramble, not a planned retreat.

Plans already in play to assault the militants’ logistics routes in Khyber Agency and mount military pressure in the region around the Tirah valley, lower Kurram and Orakzai are aimed at tightening the noose around the Taliban believed to be hiding there.

As this campaign proceeds, it is imperative that the military efforts are swiftly followed by a political drive to tackle the aftermath of the operation. This means dealing effectively with the administrative, reconstruction and development aspects of the post-conflict challenges.

In this regard the experience in Swat has been less than edifying. While the clear-and-hold phases have proceeded as smoothly as could be expected, the build-and-sustain efforts have been slow, faltering and thus far incoherent.

Even as the international community has expressed a commitment to come forth with assistance in this regard, the government has yet to even complete its “damage needs assessment” report that can serve as a credible plan to elicit support from donors. This means that the completion of the “post-conflict needs assessment” (dealing with governance issues) will be further delayed.

These delays do not inspire confidence at home and abroad about the official ability to deal with the immediate post operation challenges much less in addressing the longer-term governance architecture without which the stabilisation of the area cannot be placed on a sustainable basis.

If addressing post-conflict issues in Swat are proving so challenging for the civilian authorities, stabilising South Waziristan, once the military operation ends, will be infinitely harder. Rebuilding where extensive damage has occurred, as well as enabling the safe repatriation and rehabilitation of displaced people, will be among the urgent tasks.

The battle has therefore to be fought on many fronts, and it is the government that must step up and take responsibility to establish the structures for governance and the means to deliver services to the inhabitants of these areas if conditions are to be created to prevent the return of militancy. Military action, after all, is only one prong in an optimal policy response.

Looking ahead, the two key factors that will help determine the longer-term sustainability of the military gains in South Waziristan are unrelenting and vigorous efforts to mobilise public support for the anti-militancy effort and putting in place the governance structures that are seen as legitimate as well as responsive to the needs of the people living there.

Driving the TTP out

For all their brave talk of fighting, dying and teaching the army a lesson, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in South Waziristan did what they always do when confronted by a larger force: they fled. A number, of course, stayed back, possibly as a rearguard to slow the army’s advance. That would make sense, as from their well-positioned locations they could extract a heavy toll from the army. As it happened, the death toll was relatively light. In all, 550 insurgents, less than five per cent of the estimated numbers of the TTP force, were killed at the cost to the army of 100 brave soldiers and officers.

The TTP in South Waziristan had behaved much in the same way as in Swat. In fact, they acted as insurgents do all over the world when confronted by a regular army, which is to avoid set-piece battles so that they may live to fight another day. That is not to say that the operation was not a success. In fact, a great deal was achieved by the operation, and at a far lower cost in lives than expected.

By driving the TTP out of their strongholds in South Waziristan the army deprived them of the use of a safe haven, training facilities, bomb-making laboratories, etc. They also forced the retreating TTP to abandon a sizeable amount of weaponry and explosives, all of which will have to be replenished at considerable cost and much travail.

Insurgencies are wars of attrition and also a test of stamina and morale. The loss of strategic territory and weaponry weakens the insurgents, lowers morale and correspondingly inflates the will, effectiveness and resolve of the army and the nation. While the army has emerged the victor in South Waziristan, to maintain its ascendancy it will have to pursue and engage the enemy wherever they retreat. The TTP must know that if they are not going anywhere, nor is the army; and that, until such time as they relent, surrender or are defeated, neither will the army.

What bodes well for the future is the acceptance by the public of the legitimacy of operation Rah-e-Nijat. Public “acceptance” and “legitimacy” are key elements in determining the eventual success or failure of anti-insurgency strategies, just as they were in the dozen or so similar operations elsewhere in the world. William Polk’s study of insurgencies further reveals that no matter how much alien occupiers wish to improve the condition of the local populace, when pitted against native insurgents the sympathy of the local population will invariably be with the latter. It is mostly for this reason that America cannot win in Afghanistan and why we can, even though we may not.

Of course, these are as yet early days of the civil war that is fast enveloping Pakistan. The TTP leadership is alive and yelling revenge. They have responded with a spate of bombings in Peshawar; although when they realised that the public reaction was hostile their spokesman chose to blame the bombings on the Americans.

Public anger against the Taliban is often accompanied by ire against the authorities for failing to protect the population. And because it is always difficult to acknowledge our own failings the public places the blame on foreign conspiracies. Actually, the public seem not as much lost as bewildered. They have no idea what to believe, let alone who. They cannot comprehend what is happening to their world and resent the fact that they cannot mend it.

Unless, therefore, the suicide bombings are thwarted more effectively, current support for the government will dissipate, giving way not only to anger but worse: hopelessness and a feeling that the government is helpless. And it is precisely when the public’s pity at their own fate turns to contempt for the government that the insurgents step forward and offer themselves as alternative rulers, promising peace and an end to the slaughter, in return for the loyalty of the populace.

We saw this earlier in Swat when the police ran away, local officials were killed and the TTP stepped in to take on the job of maintaining law and order and dispensing justice. We also witnessed the absurd spectacle of TV channels broadcasting the speech of Sufi Mohammed proclaiming a new order that ironically would have made TV channels and Parliament redundant.

Although it was sobering to be confronted with what the future would look like if the TTP prevailed, more troubling was the fact that the whole nation viewed the spectacle being enacted in Swat so passively. Not a single man took to the streets against the brutalities of the TTP. And Parliament actually called for negotiations with the TTP, undoubtedly out of a sense of fear and foreboding, rather than patience and wisdom. Sadly, terror and force, the means that wins the easiest victory over reason, was being allowed to prevail.

The feeble and flaccid public response to the happenings in Swat was a revelation. It gave the enemy hope and showed how close we, as a society, are to the abyss. And were it not for the media’s incessant screening of the young woman squealing while being whipped, would anyone have bothered or the army worked up the resolve to act? It is said that the army can only act with the support of the people. One discerned no such support among the people of Dacca in 1971. Luckily for the Jews, Moses did not conduct a poll before he set off. The fact is that when great changes occur in a nation’s history, when great principles are involved, the majority are often wrong. Remedies often lie not in the ceaseless deliberations of many but the actions of a few.

As a result of the current vacuum in leadership, the clear direction which the nation so sorely requires is missing. The sarkar is rudderless. Mr Zardari feels wronged because people are laying the blame for the confusion that prevails at his doorstep. Yes, they are, but only because he not only errs, he blunders. Mr Zardari has responded by accusing people of jumping the gun and writing his political obituary. Actually, not only are they jumping the gun, they have hurdled the cannon; and what is being written now is not his political obituary but an epitaph which normally follows, and not precedes, an obituary. In other words, they are writing what they sense he has become—history. What, then, does the future hold? Who knows? Except, that it does seem dark and, at times, irretrievably so.

But if Mr Zardari, though more so his American mentors, display a mite of common sense and read the writing on the wall and depart—in the case of Mr Zardari, from office, and in the case of the Americans from Afghanistan—perhaps the darkness we are in will not stretch beyond the first light of day. Were the Americans to depart from Afghanistan the song that Al Qaeda, the Lashkars and the TTP sing will have little resonance. The Al Qaeda variety, in particular the Arab lot, who have had a hand in the murder of as many as 800 tribal maliks of FATA, can expect a cruel end when the tide turns, as it will. The Laskars, Jaishes and the TTP are more the concern of the establishment. They created them and now should snuff them out.

All this could happen, given time and proper leadership in Pakistan; and less paranoia and more imagination on the part of America. It is a shame, therefore, that the government is urging the Americans not to leave Afghanistan. How can those who, when they came should never have stayed on, be urged to continue a while longer? And after eight years, is Pakistan still not ready to cope on its own with the challenges it faces? Why should our leaders who act as if they are not afraid of God be scared of the adversary? Told that all Europe had fallen to the Nazis and asked how England expected to defend itself, an English cartoonist replied, “Very well, then alone.” Are we up to it?

Quitting Afghanistan

The Obama administration in the United States is currently engaged in rethinking a fresh Afghan strategy aimed at securing an exit without losing face. As far as meeting the projected requirement of his top commander’s recommendation is concerned, the new strategy may provide for some additional troops in order to create conditions in Afghanistan that would eventually provide for US troops an exit. As of now, the United States is so stuck up in the Afghan morass that an early exit may well turn out to be disastrous. Now that the new US strategy will include wriggling out of the Afghan imbroglio, will it look for a fall guy? The upcoming Afghan strategy will provide the answer. In a related development, The New York Times (Nov 16) has quoted American officials as saying that the centre of gravity in shaping the new strategy will be Pakistan’s willingness to broaden the scope of war against Al Qaeda beyond the militants attacking its cities and security forces.

The Pakistani leadership was sounded by Obama’s national security adviser, General James Jones, during his last visit to Pakistan when he also handed over a letter to the Mr Zardari from President Obama, urging the former to rally the nation’s political and national institutions in a concerted campaign against extremists. The message was tantamount to implying that Pakistan, once declared by the United States as a front-line state in the war against terror, must now relegate itself to a state that must handle the war on its own. It was also conveyed that in case Pakistan agreed, it would be awarded a range of new incentives covering enhanced mutual cooperation, intelligence sharing and military cooperation, and economic assistance.

Whatever decision is made on the number of additional troops for Afghanistan, it certainly will have repercussions for Pakistan. However, as the new strategy gets delayed, strange tactical moves on the part of US and NATO troops have been witnessed on the other side of the border in Afghanistan. When the Pakistan Army went into South Waziristan, it was about the same time that NATO drew down troops deployed along the Afghan border with Pakistan and consolidated some half a dozen of their remote outposts into fewer larger installations.

The favoured military option, said to be emerging from President Obama’s on-going review of the Afghan policy, is to fall back on the cities. The tactics of falling back were also the last huffs of the Russians in Afghanistan and the Americans in Vietnam. Surely, both possessed high-tech weapons and fully deployed them in Afghanistan and Vietnam, but both failed to consult history prior to jumping into respective quagmires. The drawing down of troops along the Afghan border did create a space for the terrorists to enter Pakistan for which due concern was conveyed to the Americans. Pakistan had also requested NATO and the US forces to seal the border on the Afghan side since the Pakistan Army had gone into South Waziristan.

Whether it is an increase in the number of American forces or an adoption of the alternative of troop replacement with more drone attacks in Afghanistan, FATA or Balochistan as propagated by US Vice President Joe Biden, the strategic repercussions would be identical. The US Commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, who authored the report asking for more troops to stabilise Afghanistan, while lecturing at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in UK, rejected proposals to switch over to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces’ operations against Al Qaeda. Moreover, as the troop level increases in Afghanistan, the supply route from Pakistan will be over-burdened. With focus on an army operation in South Waziristan and an unfriendly neighbour in the east, the Pakistan Army would be overstretched.

With a plethora of difficulties that the new democratic dispensation in Pakistan is already confronting, expanding the area of operations elsewhere would be tantamount to inviting trouble. More so, a perception is already taking root among the political and military leadership that America wants to transfer its war heritage to Pakistan to enable itself to exit gracefully from Afghanistan.

As far as the US administration is concerned, the realisation that stability in Afghanistan can only materialise once they pull out is a good omen. However, a hasty and ill-planned withdrawal will have disastrous effects not only for Pakistan but for the region as well. The sudden vacuum may well cause the re-emergence of terrorist networks. The paramount need for the United States now is to work for the formation of a broad-based government in the interim period between now and the time they schedule for their departure from Afghanistan. While doing so, the United States is bound to face enormous difficulties bringing the various Afghan tribal groups that are poles apart to a power-sharing deal. Like the Iraq war, the Afghan war cannot be won. Both proved to be disasters for the United States. While the respective wars resulted in massive losses of precious lives, they also got their due share in getting their own people killed. Though Iraq has taken a backstage in American misadventures, still the Afghan agony persists. It will only end with the exodus of foreign forces from Afghanistan.

NRO on highway to hell

With men like Peter W Galbraith (Benazir Bhutto’s old buddy), Matthew Hoh and Nick Horne around, we can dare to hope. We can also dare to dream of a fairer world order. The three have raised the bar for truth. They have challenged the UN and the US for following a trajectory in Afghanistan mined with iniquity, death and deception. As the UN deputy special representative in Afghanistan, Galbraith rang the alarm bells back in August against Karzai’s electoral fraud. He got promptly fired by his boss, the UN secretary-general. Matthew Hoh, an American diplomat stationed in Afghanistan, resigned recently against US occupation in Afghanistan. Richard Holbrook’s sweet persuasion failed to convince Hoh not to quit. And Nick Horne, another UN political affairs aide in Kabul, has just resigned for similar reasons.

“Among the greatest mistakes of the international community has been its laissez-faire approach to the corruption, cronyism and venality of the Afghan government,” said Horne. Galbraith too said the United Nations not only ignored massive fraud in the August election but also told him to keep quiet. UN officials told a lie to reporters saying there had been a “personality clash” between Galbraith and his senior, Kai Eide. “I might have tolerated even this last act of dishonesty if the stakes were not so high,” wrote Galbraith in The Washington Post. “For weeks, Eide had been denying or playing down the fraud in Afghanistan’s recent presidential election, telling me he was concerned that even discussing the fraud might inflame tensions in the country. But in my view, the fraud was a fact that the United Nations had to acknowledge or risk losing its credibility with the many Afghans who did not support President Hamid Karzai.” Besides, the sacked diplomat said he felt loyal to his colleagues who worked in a dangerous environment to help Afghans hold honest elections. “At least five of whom have now told me they are leaving jobs they love in disgust over the events leading to my firing.”

While one can’t expect these resignations to have rocked the US or the UN, still there is something called the “domino effect.” The revolt has begun, and there’s no saying where and when it will end.

While the White House and the State Department has declared Karzai the president of Afghanistan, his counterpart and brother across the border is facing his own demons crying for his blood with the NRO. President Zardari struck a special friendship with Karzai in recent months, with the latter declaring him his “Bhaijan.” They are brothers in arms on hell’s highway — marooned in their presidential palaces fearing for their lives. Spurned at home, spawning a tainted track record, the American acolyte pair have duly been sanitised and declared kosher by Washington.

Don’t you think Secretary of State Hillary Clinton erred on the wrong side of grandiosity when she archly asked Pakistani businessmen why the rich didn’t pay income tax? “At the risk of sounding un-diplomatic,” she intoned, “Pakistan has to have internal investment in your public services and your business opportunities… The percentage of taxes on GDP is among the lowest in the world… We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she sneered.

Great observation, Madame Secretary! But wait. Is it not your great country that exonerates corruption by devising devilish laws like the NRO? Was it not your predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, who baptised the NRO? Was it not Washington that connived with the Pakistani Army (read Musharraf), the PPP (read Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari) and the ISI (read Gen Kayani) to wash away the sins and crimes of our leaders now facing Pakistanis’ frontal wrath?

“You do have 180 million people,” continued Clinton. “Your population is projected to be about 300 million. And I don’t know what you’re gonna do with that kind of challenge, unless you start planning right now,” she said. Great observation, once again, Madame Secretary! But your concern has such a hollow ring to it. Why, because the US has never considered the interests of the “180 million people” but has cherry-picked a handful few to rob a country screaming for help.

Mrs Clinton was huddled with Zardari and Gilani in Islamabad when the Peshawar bombing occurred. She, along with Zardari and Gilani, shed crocodile tears at the “loss of human life.” (Oh, how empty and hypocritical these words sound!) Better it would have been had the good lady and our “grieving” leaders asked the Hoti government whether the following factoids were true: One ambulance per 200,000 persons in Peshawar; seven ambulances for Lady Reading Hospital, four of which are 1986 model and (needless to add) in pathetic shape, the only new one reserved for VIP use. Can young Hoti confirm reports that the 260-or-so wounded were taken to the hospital on motorcycles and rickshaws?

If the chief minister’s answer is in the affirmative, then Hillary Clinton as the representative of America, the NRO-tainted leadership of Pakistan and their elected high priests in Peshawar have lost their moral compass. Death stalks Peshawar daily and not to even have one new ambulance is simply criminal. Where has the Hoti government spent all the money from USAID, the UN and donor countries? We need answers. But who will ask when their bosses in Islamabad steal with impunity?

Needed, then, are a few brave men in Pakistan who will stand up and say “enough!” Shahbaz Sharif sang Habib Jalib, Main naheen maanta/Main naheen jaanta, last year in support of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Why is he not singing now? Why did he allow his party MNA turncoat Zahid Hamid, the fellow who as Musharraf’s law minister passed the NRO, to abstain from voting on the bill in the standing committee because Hamid had a flight to catch? Are the Sharif brothers and the MQM leader Altaf Hussain duping us by publicly opposing the “National Robbers Organisation” (NRO) while playing footsy with Zardari? And why is America-returned Aitzaz Ahsan causing more confusion by giving conflicting statements on the NRO, instead of taking a firm position? Is he with the masses or with Zardari?

One brave citizen of Karachi, Naeem Sadiq, has launched “People’s Resistance,” inviting all to join in a peaceful protest walk against the NRO: this “black law will rob Pakistani citizens of all equality and justice while providing indemnity to those who indulge in the biggest crimes and corruption.” Huzaima and Ikram, another brave couple teaching at LUMS recently wrote: “Pakistan’s economic crisis is due to criminal culpability of our ruling elite. The policy of appeasement towards tax evaders, money launderers and plunderers of national wealth–NRO is a classical example–is proving disastrous. The state is going bankrupt, but those at the helm live lavishly–see their residences and investments in London, Dubai and elsewhere.”

And they don’t pay taxes either! Corrupt and inefficient departments like the police and revenue, “faithfully serve their masters” and, in the process, also make huge money for themselves. The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) not only failed to tap the actual tax potential of Rs4 trillion but the Rs1,130 billion it raised in 2008-2009 in taxes got “plundered and wasted by the ruling elite. The ministers, state ministers, advisers, MNAs and MPAs alone squandered 700 billion on perks and perquisites.”

Thank you America for gifting us the NRO and giving crumbs to the poor after our leaders have had their feeding frenzy under your benevolent eye.

India’s Arihant — upping the psychological ante

While Pakistan’s decision makers squabble over whether to go ahead and implement the 2008 decision of buying German submarines or alter course and seek more French subs instead, India has put its prototype nuclear powered submarine, INS Arihant, into the waters. Incidentally, those in Pakistan who have been ranting for years over the use of Islamic warrior names for our missiles seem absurdly mute in commenting on India’s aggressive usage of Hindu mythology warrior names not only for its missiles but now also for its nuclear-powered submarine. Of course, the reality is that the nuclear reactor of this submarine will not go critical till 2012, so at the moment Arihant is more of a symbolic reflection of where India is headed in terms of its nuclear arsenal. Nevertheless, the development has signalled the nuclearisation of the Indian Ocean by a littoral state – since nuclear weapons have been present in this Ocean through the military presence of the external nuclear powers, especially the US.

That is one major reason why the US, France and UK always opposed the UN General Assembly’s efforts to make the Indian Ocean a weapon-free “zone of peace” – as reflected in the first UN GA Resolution of 16 December 1971(2832:XXVI). Ironically, along with the Soviet Union, India was a major force behind this Non-Aligned Movement-supported UN resolution. But then this has been the hallmark of Indian security policy: seeking time through multilateral diplomatic moves while it builds its military capability. In contrast to the Indian position on the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace resolution, the US, France and the UK always voted against this idea and in 1989 they chose to withdraw from the 44 member UN committee on this issue that had been set up in 1972. The US in fact demanded that the committee be eliminated so as to reduce UN spending and we know how this whole issue simply died for lack of visible progress. Now that India has also moved towards nuclear militarisation of the Indian Ocean, it will be difficult to see any revival of the zone of peace proposal for this region in the future. With the launching of the Arihant, India has moved still further away from being a proponent of nuclear disarmament to being a projector of nuclear force. Strategic rationality makes it incumbent on Pakistan to seek to restore the nuclear balance for the future.

However, this should not be a major issue for us even in financial terms, as long as the lure of commissions does not distort or destroy our strategic interests. We already have conventional submarines including the Agosta-type which are not only capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but can be upgraded to being fitted with air-independent propulsion technology (AIP) specifically designed to allow conventional subs to remain submerged for longer periods. That is the main advantage of nuclear-powered submarines, along with the speed element – they do not need to surface like conventional subs that need to surface after short periods of being submerged and therefore become vulnerable. AIP technology is specifically designed for conventional subs and the Germans have been in the forefront of this technological development, although the Agostas can also be upgraded.

It is unfortunate that Pakistan’s purchase of subs has been delayed apparently over the commissions lure, because now the international community will make it harder for this country to acquire these subs. Have we learnt no lessons from what happened to Pakistan in 1974 after the Indian nuclear test? India tested and Pakistan was penalised! The Canadians withdrew from KANUPP despite IAEA safeguards and a legal agreement. There is nothing to suggest that things will be different this time round – given how Hillary Clinton practically blessed Indian militarisation with a new defence pact. Besides Pakistan’s pathetic record of asserting legal agreements with its allies makes us easy victims of foreign pressure and diktat – remember the replacement of F-16s with wheat and soya beans? Not only did we lose our money, but before the US finally retracted on the deal, we were made to pay parking charges for these F-16s also! But we always forget US abuse and present ourselves for more of the same whenever the occasion arises!

Coming back to the Indian nuclear powered submarine – it should be pointed out that we do not yet know how it will perform once its reactor goes critical. Will it actually have the speed and capability – given that it has been built with Soviet/Russian technology and the fate of many Soviet/Russian subs lies at the bottom of the seas – taking a heavy toll of human life and reflecting the limitations of Soviet weapon systems? A major disadvantage of nuclear-powered subs is that they are noisier because they have to keep the reactor powered on all the time so if conventional subs can acquire longer submergeable capability through AIP technology – although it will still not be the same as a nuclear-driven sub – the imbalance can be offset to some extent.

Sea-launched nuclear missiles are central to second strike capability which acts as a stabiliser in the context of nuclear strategy since it reduces the imperatives for first strike. In this context, although Pakistan has not officially made any declarations regarding the development of this capability, it is now fairly well-established that we are already on the way to ensuring this second strike capability. It is also now recognised that we have had more success with missile development than India – probably because we have kept our missile ranges and types limited and focused more on developing solid fuelled delivery systems (which, again, are more stable) and reducing circular error probabilities. India, on the other hand, chose to have a wide-ranging missile programme including seeking the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). While we have stabilised our cruise missile as well as moved towards the beginnings of sea-launched ballistic missiles, from all accounts, India has not been too successful in both these fields – especially with the Sagarika (which is to be its sea-launched missile) in surface tests. So if India is to gain any advantage from its nuclear-powered submarine, assuming it will perform as expected once its reactor goes critical, it will have to work more on its delivery systems.

For Pakistan while there is no need to go into panic mode, we will have to stop sacrificing good deals simply because of the greed over commissions. The fact that a French inquiry has hinted at commissions lying at the root of the death of the French engineers in Karachi should be a sobering moment for any leadership. But the brazenness with which our successive decision-makers have been proceeding, with scant regard for propriety and wastage of limited national resources, shows that no lessons have been learnt – nor is there any desire to learn from even recent history.

Worse still, our rulers are full of bombast but are unwilling to take proactive concrete actions. Take the case of Balochistan. Political leaders of all shades have been repeating ad nauseum the need for political healing and economic investment in that province but why have the first steps in that direction not been taken beyond publication of reports and statements? Why is the leadership so hesitant to declare a general amnesty for all Baloch political figures and the release of all political prisoners? When we can talk to militants (and we should if they are our own people prepared to accept the writ of the state) and be allied to the Americans who continue to kill our people through drone attacks, why are we so unwilling to begin the healing process with the Baloch people and their leaders? Why are we allowing our detractors to provide support for the dissidents instead of taking the punch out of their dissidence by granting them a one-time amnesty if they accept the writ of the state? How can we rise to external military challenges posed by countries like India and the US when we are unable to deal with our own people? Our weakness lies within ourselves reflecting a psychological confidence deficit which makes the rulers aggressive and non-accommodative with the nation and timorous before external players. The Indians and Americans are exploiting this well which is why the Indian’s are making grandiose statements about a submarine that has yet to show how it performs!

Will India, Pakistan stop playing pot and kettle?

At the height of the Cold War, a Russian was showing off his country’s achievements to an American visitor. There was a train from Moscow to Vladivostok every three hours, he boasted. And, regardless of the vast stretch of 9,288 kilometres the journey involved, there was never a minute’s delay.

When the train didn’t show up for the entire day, the Russian detected a victorious smile on the American’s face. ‘Look here, Yankee,’ he growled. ‘You too have a black problem in your country.’

India and Pakistan are often enough like the pot calling the kettle black. Take the latest story of a bigoted Pakistani cleric called Hafiz Saeed who preaches hatred of Hindus and Jews, Shias, Sunnis, Christians – everyone except Wahhabis and Salafis. India says he masterminded the Mumbai terror attack. There is a good chance that the claim is right. Some of Saeed’s colleagues are being tried for their alleged role in the crime. As the leader of the pack he should logically be seen as culpable in the incident, which has injected litres of bad blood in the India-Pakistan equation.

However, Hafiz Saeed may well have done, if he did what India says he did, on behalf of someone else – perhaps someone who found it objectionable that the national security advisers of India and Pakistan had an excellent meeting in Delhi in October. Remember also that Mumbai was attacked in November, precisely on the day, in fact within hours of, a good meeting between the Pakistan foreign minister and his Indian counterpart in Delhi.

Was the Mumbai attack planned to torpedo improving India-Pakistan ties? It could be one of the reasons, if not the entire explanation. And everyone in India and Pakistan who believes that the two countries should continue to mistrust each other are complying, if not colluding, with the terrorists’ strategic objectives carried out in Mumbai, Kabul, Bangalore, Lahore, Delhi and Karachi among a growing number of places in their cross-hairs. The Lok Sabha TV, an official channel that I find somewhat balanced in contrast to its several private counterparts, asked me if Pakistan lacked the will to prosecute Hafiz Saeed. Former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, G. Parthasarthy, who I see as a hawk on Pakistan (a lethal combination with his army background) was the other discussant. I asked the anchor to try to use the word alleged, as the old-fashioned (and more reliable) journalists would. Parthasarthy disagreed.

He said Hafiz Saeed would not qualify for the cautionary word we were taught to treat as sacred in journalism. For him Saeed was as much a culprit as Ajmal Kasab was in Mumbai’s November nightmare. Why don’t we just abandon the trial and hang everyone we ‘know’ to be guilty?

With this attitude Indians are basically double guessing Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which did not find grounds to keep Hafiz Saeed in captivity any longer. Indians would not normally like others to question their apex court. And if you did something like that in India you could be sent to prison as Arundhati Roy was, for questioning the Supreme Court’s hitherto unquestioned wisdom. So Indians should first canvass to change the colonial-style judiciary and the blind faith in their courts. And then perhaps they would be justified in questioning the integrity of Pakistani judges and to pontificate about their superior judiciary to the rest of the world. Let’s grant to Parthasarthy the possibility that Pakistan’s highest court had acted, like any other court would, on the material evidence placed before it. Perhaps the ISI, or whoever it was that handled the prosecution of Saeed, did not deliberately want to arrest him for whatever compulsions and, therefore, presented a weak case. That’s theoretically possible. In fact this kind of thing happens all the time, not in Pakistan alone. How do we proceed along the commonplace and patently Indian narrative that the Pakistan establishment, which rejoices in the death of a rabid hate-monger like Baitullah Mehsud, is in fact doing everything to set his ideological clone Hafiz Saeed free? I said to the TV anchor that it was possible that Pakistan has unknown compulsions, like the ones India has revealed on several occasions in domestic affairs.

It would be preposterous, for example, to suggest that India had some kind of willingness to free a group of terrorists in a swap deal for the passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines plane in December 1999. But it certainly must have had its compulsions. Whether we agree with that or not is beside the point. In fact I can even see a hint of continuity of that line of thinking even though India has a different government today than the one that freed the Pakistani terrorists.

The faith in the Vajpayee-era policy, in fact its endorsement, is evident in the fact that the foreign ministry official who accompanied the terrorists to Kandahar with his foreign minister to set them free there, happens to be the head of the group that was authorised by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to lead the talks on terrorism with Pakistan after the Havana meeting with President Pervez Musharraf.

One of the fellows thus freed in Kandahar went on to fund the group that slammed hijacked planes into the World Trade Centre in New York. He then proceeded to brutally slit the throat of a fine journalist, partly because he happened to be a Jew. The other fellow released by India is believed to have staged the December 2001 attack on India’s parliament. What were the compulsions for India to free these people?

Some lives were saved, others put to risk. Could there be a similar compulsion for Pakistan to handle Hafiz Saeed with cotton wool? A senior editor from Pakistan, who has some credibility in Delhi, told an Indian TV channel that perhaps Pakistan does not want to have a domestic backlash when it was engaged in a war against the Taliban. Do we accept that argument? Is it possible that the Indian government is aware of the pitfalls that Pakistan faces if it presses too hard against everyone that New Delhi wants to be put behind the bars? Without a degree of trust, at least between the prime ministers of the two countries and not necessarily their foreign ministries, I doubt if they could have clinched the agreement to share ‘real time intelligence’ against future terror threats. I think that was the biggest achievement of Sharm el-Sheikh. Parthasarthy believes the agreement is unworkable.

As far as compulsions go India has had quite a few of its own. There has not been a single conviction in the genocide of the Sikhs in 1984. Does anyone know why? Not one person has been sent to jail for breaking the law (and also the heart) of India in Ayodhya in 1992. The Justice Shrikrishna Commission Report on the pogrom against a minority community by a well-armed group of fanatics in Mumbai, assisted by the police, has been all but thrown into the dustbin. It had named names and given police wireless records of the culprits and their culpability. Nothing happened. When a group of Indians protested against the killing of nine Christians in Pakistan by Muslim extremists I thought there should have been many more angry demonstrations against what happened across the border. There should be demonstrations in both countries against atrocities committed by religious fanatics. The massacre of Christian tribes people and Dalits in Orissa is a case in point where there should have been a collective condemnation of the horrific killings. That’s the way we used to be. If we have a common destiny, then we have a stake in each other’s pain and grief.

However, the focus has already shifted to the looming elections in Maharashtra, a prestigious contest for the ruling Congress and the rightwing opposition. All the attacks on the Indian prime minister’s agreement with his Pakistani counterpart in Sharm el-Sheikh, from within his party and the opposition, are not unrelated to the politics of elections. After all Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra and the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party are looking to exploit the shaken sentiments of the sprawling multi-cultural city.

And so the story of the train to Vladivostok and America’s black problem is not likely to lose its currency anytime soon. The South Asian narrative is a tragic variant of the pot calling the kettle black.

Better alive than dead?

The ISPR has stated the victory over the Taliban would not be complete until the top leadership was defeated. 

This of course makes sense. The dramatic story of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers, who were eventually forced to surrender after a 25-year struggle as they were cornered in a piece of jungle barely larger than a football field, is one that ends too with the death of 

Velupillai Prabhakaran – the elusive leader who pioneered the suicide belt and from his jungle hide-out ordered a series of high-profile kidnappings, including that in 1991 of Indian Prime Minsiter Rajiv Gandhi. But in the context of Pakistan, where death is associated by extremists with martyrdom, the army suggestion that final victory can come with the killing of men like Maulana Fazlullah, who the ISPR says has already been targeted thrice, raises some questions.

This is also borne out by the chilling interview given to ‘The Sunday Times’ by the man known as ‘Colonel Imam’. Between 1979 and 1989, Amir Sultan Tarar, himself trained at Fort Bragg and courted by US presidents, helped raise the mujahideen army that defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan and then played a key role in raising the Taliban force that eventually over-ran the country. Men like Mullah Omar rank among his pupils. Like a handful of ISI officers, he is believed to have retained links with the militants even after his former US mentors changed their stance. Today, Tarar warns the Taliban can never be defeated and that each death will lead to more supporters rising to replace the man who fell. This may be an exaggeration, but it would be unwise to completely dismiss the warning. The building up of militants as martyrs has played a part in their phenomenal growth. This is true not only in the tribal areas, where the notion of an ‘eye for eye’ justice remains strongly rooted, but even in towns like Gujranwala where squares have been re-named for jihadi ‘heroes’ and which has seen a series of crimes motivated by extremism, including the 2007 murder of Punjab minister Zill-e-Huma, shot dead by a fanatic who opposed a role for women in public life. Similar sentiments can be detected in other places. Even in Lahore, there are those who seek still to defend the Taliban, and to blame the bombings in our cities on some plot hatched in Washington. 

These factors mean that the state may need to rise above ideas of vengeance and revenge. Rather than deliberately attempting to kill Fazalullah and others who form the top tier of Taliban leadership, perhaps we need to focus on the need to bring them to courts – and to lay out the truth before people. Too many facets of this truth remain hidden. People in Swat need a chance to talk openly of Fazalullah’s own role in extortion; of rape and sodomy committed by his men. The refusal by state agencies to come clean is one reason why men like Hafiz Muhammad Saeed are able to walk out unpunished after periods in detention, waving confidently to supporters and making speeches about ‘moderation’. The stories told by ‘Colonel Imam’ testify to the close links that have existed between the state and the extremists. The existence of this nexus alone explains why men like Hafiz Saeed or Maulana Masood Azhar seem able to time and again escape the reach of the law without even facing charges. We need now to squarely confront this past; to talk about it openly and to admit to mistakes made. Otherwise the blackmail hold of militant leaders who threaten to divulge details of these ties in order to coerce the authorities into silence will remain intact and prevent the process of prosecution and justice that is at this point essential.

Through history, there are many examples of the manner in which death bestows immortality. We need to guard against this. The sight of men like Fazalullah and Muslim Khan in the dock would help dispel the myths that still persist. In Swat there is some evidence that these are being deliberately propagated, by the remnants of the Taliban, who speak of their ‘escape’ as evidence that God has sided with them. There is a need to challenge such assertions and the myths that will in time evolve.

More too needs to be done. Looked at it retrospect, there is no doubt the Afghan war that began with the Soviet invasion of that country in 1979 altered the contours of our society. General Ziaul Haq’s opportunistic ‘Islamization’ and the US policies pursued at the time contributed to this. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has accepted this without further attempts to deny the past. But in the period that followed the dark Zia years, fundamental errors were made. After every war, an attempt to re-assimilate combatants is necessary. People engaged in fighting need to be re-introduced to the different pattern and priorities of life in times of peace, assisted in the role of re-adaption to changed circumstances. This requirement has been completely overlooked. The thousands of young fighters who were encouraged at various points to take up arms in the name of ‘jihad’ were never deprogrammed or offered other roles in society. In Swat, those who went with Sufi Mohammad Khan to Afghanistan in 2001 to fight US-led forces were in many cases simply released back into society when they returned as angry, defeated warriors some of whom had faced mistreatment in Afghan jails. These men, some no more than teenagers when they were recruited by Sufi, today form in many cases the ranks of the Taliban in the Valley.

We need a rehabilitation plan for them and for others who have since been herded into madressahs and other training institutions. For many of these boys, power stems only from the gun they see in the hands of others and yearn to hold themselves. A similar phenomenon was seen in Kashmir as militancy emerged in that once-peaceful region. A well-planned policy is needed to turn it back and to demonstrate to people that there are indeed other ways of getting ahead in life. Somehow, the cycle of vendetta and violence needs to be broken. Simplistic arguments being put forward say the people of NWFP, the families who lost loved ones in the current conflict will seek revenge. It is said suicide bombers include those who lost relatives as a result of armed action in Waziristan or elsewhere.

There may be some element of truth in these assertions. But what needs to be emphasized is the importance of moving beyond it, of lifting people up from their past and encouraging them to look towards the future. The government now needs to work towards carving out this future. For many people none currently seems to exist. Involving them in the process of creating one, by offering education, jobs, opportunity – and at the same time dispensing justice in an open and fair manner – may be the key to turning back the tide of militancy and ensuring it does not in the future return to flood our society.

Waziristan – Final Battle?

The Wazirs are a more warlike Pakhtoon tribe than the Durranis, Lodhis, Suris and Ghalzais who ruled the subcontinent. They inhabit South and North Waziristan in Pakistan and Birmal, Matun districts in Afghanistan. Wazirs preferred a life of isolation, or they could have established a dynasty in the subcontinent. 

In 1979, when the Russian forces entered Afghanistan. The Americans found an opportunity to contain communism and settle scores with the USSR. Billions of dollars were pumped in to make Pakhtoons fight against Pakhtoons. The Pakhtoons had a rich culture of tolerance, openness, moderation, music, poetry and art. In the NWFP and FATA, Sikhs, Hindus and other minorities enjoyed equal rights. Never had any communal riots occurred. Sikhs and Hindus lived peacefully in Afridi and Orakzai Tirah for ages, where no Pakistani official could enter until 2002. Both North and South Waziristan were used as bases for the Afghan jihad. A few local youths, influenced by the jihadis, joined them to fight against the Russians. Though the impact of jihad, on the Pakhtoon culture of Waziristan, was not very significant, the seeds of extremism were sown in these areas.

The Durand Line divided tribes in six tribal agencies .The line, since not demarcated on ground, was never considered as border by tribal. Cross border, movement was a routine. The shinwaris of Landikotal would go to Jalalabad to play football matches. Tribal from Pakistan were member of afghan parliament. Political dynamics of Afghanistan always have a strong impact on FATA. In September 1996, Taliban captured Kabul. Inspired by their success, local Taliban became active in Mir Ali Tehsil of North Waziristan by 1998. Utmanzai Wazir and Dawar are the main tribes, while Kharsins, Siadgis, Gurbaz, and Malakshi Mahsud also reside in North Waziristan. Few men from these tribes joined afghan Taliban to fight against Northern Alliance.Baitullah Mahsud was one of them. His father, Mulana Haroon, was imam Masjid in Bannu Cantonment. Baitullah was born and brought up in Bannu. He got religious education from a madrassa in Daud Shah, Bannu and for some time he studied in a Miranshah madrassa. He remained an Imam Masjid in Mati Mamman Khel village in Jani Khel area of FR Bannu. After 9/11, he moved to his ancestral area of Shabi khel Mahsud in South Waziristan.

Foreign militants entered Waziristan in March 2002 in the aftermath of operation ANACONDA, conducted by NATO forces in Shahi Kot area of Paktiya province. Baitullah was then not well known in Waziristan. Shelter to foreign militant was provided by Ahmadzai Wazirs of Wana. Nek Mohammad,Sharif Khan,Noor Ul Islam,Omer were the prominent facilitators.Ahmedzai Wazir and Mahsuds are the main tribes of South Waziristan,while Dotanis,Suleman Khel and Urmers also inhabit the area.Mahsuds and Ahmedzai wazirs have never enjoyed cordial relations.. Since foreign militants were mainly in Wazir areas therefore to isolate them, an agreement was inked with Baitullah Mahsud in February 2005. The deal made, was in good faith, to isolate Ahmadzai Wazirs and to ensure that Biatullah men do not conduct operation across the border. During the next 2 years Baitullah consolidated, his position .He formed Tahreek E Taliban Pakistan in December 2007, with the support of Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda’s leadership. He was declared Amir of TTP.

The army’s final battle is likely to be fought against Baitullah in South Waziristan. The remnants of terrorist from Swat,Mohmand,Orakzai,Kurram,Darra, are likely to fall back to South Waziristan.The elements of banned jiahadi organizations, lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Jaish and other jihadis are likely to join this battle for their survival. Timely and successful completion of the Malakand operation will have immense effects on future operations. Extraordinary security arrangements should be made to make the job of suicide bombers difficult. The nation is already geared up for the cause of the IDPs. A quick, transparent and efficient mechanism for reconstruction of conflict areas should be designed and executed. Pakistan is at war and we must win it for our future generations to enable them to live a life of their choice, especially for the daughters of this nation.

Avoiding a quagmire?

The magnificent performance of the rank and file of the Army fighting the counter-insurgency in Swat is no surprise. Whether in Kashmir in 1947-48, Dir in 1958 and 1976, the Rann of Kutch, occupied Kashmir (Operation Gibraltar) and later in the full-fledged war of 1965, during the 1971 war, in the Balochistan counter-insurgency in 1973-5, Siachen continuously since 1985, in Kargil in 1998 and in FATA since 2004 (and many more small conflicts that would take many more pages), officers and men have kept their commitment.

The average officer-to-soldier ratio in combat fatalities during conventional operations being 1:17 or 1:18 in most Armies represents the command structure at the field level functioning adequately, young officers (including lieutenant colonels) leading rather than sending men to their deaths. In the Pakistan Army and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), the superior 1:10 or 1:11 average through many conflicts means that the young officers are far more enthusiastic at leading from the front in the face of fire. This ratio is also usually higher among commandos (Special Forces). 

The 100-plus fatalities to-date reveals a disproportionate number of officers in combat-related deaths, the ratio in Swat reportedly 1:5 or 1:6 being unusually high. Sons of a number of ex-servicemen (including friends of mine) have given the ultimate sacrifice for their nation, this is a great indication (and vindication) of the moral fibre of this Army. One cannot eulogise such men, fathers and sons, in mere words. 

The operational plan is sound. The concept of overwhelming force was applied, and from concentric directions. Always a difficult proposition, the problems is force-multiplied in mountainous terrain without adequate heliborne mobility. What was achieved without such capability is remarkable, a tribute to the outstanding pilots of Army Aviation. The Taliban did not expect the Army to move so swiftly from different directions and with such determination, particularly against dominating heights where they were well dug in. To limit collateral damage in the towns, the Army took the calculated risk that the Taliban would leave their fortified positions in built-up areas and come and attack them. This was a fatal miscalculation, rather wishful thinking, compounded by the fact that road exits and mountain passes were not all blocked, possibly due to paucity of human and equipment resources. That is where a shortage of helicopters was critical, but it does not seem to have been militarily appreciated. This permitted a large number of Taliban to melt away, mostly in pickup trucks, with time and vehicular capacity to even take away their generators.

It is of vital importance when going after insurgents to target their leadership, locating and eliminating leaders like Fazlullah and Shah Doran. The inability to eliminate their top leadership is most probably due to inadequate intelligence rather than intent. With the Army’s presence in some strength giving the locals confidence, optimum use must be made of information gleaned from all sources. Unless the hardcore Taliban are eliminated they will always have the capacity and potential to come back in strength.

People with credibility and capability are needed to reach a sound assessment. Two outstanding veterans of different vintage with a track record of being blunt helped answer my queries. Both readily admitted that the Taliban were far better trained, equipped and motivated than the opponents they faced during their period. Capt (later Brig) Manto was the SSG company commander in the Dir operations in 1958. He took over Maj Ziauddin Abbasi Shaheed’s Bravo Squadron (Sept 11) in Guides Cavalry during war and commanded 26 Cavalry in battle in Chamb in 1971. In 1976 as CO 36 Baloch Lt Col (later Lt Gen) Lehrasab, who entered occupied Kashmir as part of Operation Gibraltar in 1965 as a lieutenant and was wounded grievously, being the last to be medically evacuated from East Pakistan in 1971, took the surrender of tribals in Dir. 

A well planned operation is falling short because of shortage of adequate intelligence and heliborne resources. We should brace ourselves for long-drawn guerrilla warfare that could tie the Army down while eating away the moral and material resources of the country. For a third opinion (and I deliberately did not turn to another genuine hero, my old CO Brig Mohammad Taj, SJ and Bar, for reasons that could have been embarrassing to the ISI), but someone who (like his course-mate Lehrasab) has shed blood for this country, his rifle company being almost wiped out, refusing to surrender when completely surrounded in East Pakistan in December 1971. Grievously wounded, Maj (later Brig) Akram woke up days later in captivity in an Indian Army Hospital. Nobody could recognise this hero’s emaciated self when he walked out of captivity in 1973. Presently helping in relief operations deep inside Malakand, Brig (Retd) Akram sent me an SMS that about sums it all up. “Our security agencies are still doing a lousy job. They virtually have no information on extremists’ leadership. Operations going very slow, lack of aggressiveness and absence of coordination is visible. Contents of daily sitrep (situation reports) as if fighting (is) taking place between two regular forces. More when we meet!” 

Instead of turning to the motivated with a gift of the gab, Kayani could take counsel from the likes of Manto, Lehrasab and Akram, and many others like him who have really fought (and not just talked the good talk) for this country, even shed blood for it. Their experience and sacrifice may give you that cutting edge in a fight that we must win. And maybe spare a thought for those fathers whose sons have already given the ultimate sacrifice for their country as was their wont and earnest desire. Only superior generalship and true rendition of the cause, not pandering subservience to the Constitution as it stands today, a controversial document mutilated by the black NRO, will make their supreme sacrifice worth the blood they have spilt for this nation.

Military operation and the fallout in Lower Dir

Originally under the control of the Nawab of Dir the area has been divided, subdivided and seen battles for ownership by local groups. The latest battle is one that the state of Pakistan must solely take responsibility for. A decades-long blundering and short-sighted policy has finally taken its toll. Now tanks and troops roll in to rectify the damage. Not an easy undertaking. Hundreds of thousands of the population is displaced, foreign insurgents freely hound our places and people are striking unholy alliances. The weakened state, rather a collaborating state is now attempting to make amends. It’s a tough task. But one that cannot be ignored.

The strategic significance of Lower Dir is illustrated by the fact that on its west lies Afghanistan, on its south is Malakand and Bajaur, in its north is Chitral and on its east lies Swat. Of Lower Dir’s approximately 130,000 population essentially 79 percent have left for safer places.

The local forces essentially consist of the Frontier Corps, known as Dir Scouts in the area. The Taliban have mounted offensive attacks gradually since end- March. Tensions have now spread to Upper Dir has well. The military commander maintain there is peace in five of the seven Lower Dir tehsils but what is seem while driving towards Maidaan,Chakdara and Gulabad signs of peace and security are not visible.

By mid-March violence raged in the area. The dates were of significance. None other than the local Frontier Corps commanders correlated the signing of first the February agreement between the NWFP government and the TNSM and the Nizam-e-Adl in April.

This reassertion of the Taliban was helped by the movements in the neighbouring Mohmand Agency’s Mohmaghat post. Mohmand provides the basic linkage between Bajaur, Dir and Waziristan. The significance of Bajaur is relevant for Lower Dir as well. With Kandharo, the place where the Taliban had their base where there had training camps and force concentration, has road access to Lower Dir.

It was in Kandharo that the Taliban declared the existence of an alternate Lal Masjid. Soon after the Lal Masjid operation was conducted the local Taliban set up a “Lal Masjid” in a mosque adjacent to the Hajisahib Tarangazis shrine. It is this mosque which the Taliban turned into their base. On a huge wall there are names of the Taliban who were killed during the operation. Kandharo, hence, is the hub from where Taliban are supplied to other surrounding areas, including Lower Dir.

The state has hitherto not been able to prevent the movement of inter-agency Taliban. Indeed, a tall order! What however is important is that the government must stop the easy movement of foreign militants from Kunar and Nagharhar in Afghanistan to the Suran Valley and beyond.

Buoyed by their foreign support, for example in Lower Dir, about 10 school kids were killed in a suicide bombing attack. Following that about 10 major blasts took place, killing dozens of locals. An estimated 80 people died. A local commercial bank manager was kidnapped and later killed. Similarly a DCO was also killed in early April. The kidnappers demanded a Rs20-million ransom. Finally they killed him. A similar fate awaited a local tehsildar. The hitherto banned FM radio station became active. Regular Taliban intercepts picked up indicated influx of foreign Taliban using the Kunar Valley-Suran Valley routes near Momandghat post bordering Bajaur and the Mohmand Agency.

Finally the government and the GHQ agreed to launch an operation between the night of April 25-26, with the Dir Scouts using two army units and an armoured unit. An about 2,000-strong force, including logistical support, was launched. Maidan aread was attacked. The significance of Maidan lies in its being the hub of Sufi Mohammad, the TNSM chief. The famous Qambar Bazaar passes through this stronghold–essentially Sufi Mohammad’s residential area. Sufi Mohmamad’s following has naturally been the strongest here. Above the Qambar Bazaar lies a strategically important post, the Kalapani post.

Kalapani lies at a height, just the perfect vantage point from where to hit the enemy from a height. Linked to Kalapani is a matted road which comes onto Qambar Bazaar, giving access to those who control the Kalapnai post. Two other important posts that fall in the Maidan area are the Lala Qila and the Qambar posts.

According to the army’s own estimates they are a fighting a force of no more than 500 to 600 Taliban. However, in the fishbowl battlefield of Maidan the strategic heights count. All Bajaur commanders repeatedly indicate that numerical superiority does not matter in the counter-insurgency battles fought in the mountainous terrain. The battle is treacherous. The IEDs are vastly spread. The locals can be on either side. Along the Timergarah-Maidan Road there are no guaranteed safe paths. In a quarter kilometre distance the media was taken by the army surrounded by hundred armed men, a tank ahead of us and dozens of troops perched on the jeep in which we sat. This is no safety zone in which civilians will return.

The Taliban too manage to go on the offensive. For example recently in Hayat Sarai the Taliban laid an ambush was a major surprise attack by the Taliban. Taliban had RPGs and mines and gave the army a tough fight.

It’s a tough task all around. The occasional civilians seen on the roads wear the look of fear. Initially they worked with locals worked with an approach to co-existence with the Taliban initially. They asked them to say their prayers in the mosque, they offered to provide them protection, to pray for Allah’s blessings. But subsequently they demanded that these people make financial contributions and also contribution. There is an appreciation that the operation may have brought destruction but there is hope that it may bring peace and security in the region.

Irrespective of what news may trickle out from either the Taliban or the army the fact is that the battle for Kalpani post and the control of the Qambar-Timergarah road still rages. Indeed reports suggest that the battle will be over soon. It is unlikely that a definitive answer is in the offing.

The counterinsurgency strategy is a tough one to implement.