Pashtuns Aren't Iraqis

Gen David Petraeus, the Commander of the US Central Command, who previouslyheaded the US forces in Iraq, was credited with bringing down the level ofviolence in Iraq and weakening the capability of Al Qaeda in Iraq by creating adivide between the secular Baathist Arabs of Saddam Hussein's army and localadministration and the Wahabi Arabs of  Al Qaeda by strengthening variouslocal militias with names such as the Awakening Councils, which had come intoexistence even before he took over in Iraq.

When he was appointed by President George Bush to be the head of the CentralCommand, which, inter alia, is responsible for the US operations against AlQaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and in the bordering Pashtun areas ofPakistan, he was reported to have set up a brains trust to advise him on a newstrategy to be followed against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in theAfghanistan-Pakistan region. While the new strategy is still being worked out,some elements of it are already in the process of being implemented.

These include a planned surge in the US forces in Afghanistan in the comingmonths by inducting another 30,000 troops and the setting up of  localmilitias, which would work on the pattern of the Awakening Councils  inIraq. Many Afghan observers have been expressing doubts whether Petraeus' ideaswould work in Afghanistan. The Pashtun society--particularly in Afghanistan-- isdifferent from the Iraqi society. Hatred of non-Muslim foreigners is very strongamong the Pashtuns and the hatred of Pashtuns who are perceived as collaboratingwith non-Muslim  foreigners is even stronger. Moreover, the Pashtuns lookupon the Arabs of Al Qaeda, now operating from sanctuaries in the NorthWaziristan area of Pakistan's Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), astheir honoured guests and as their co-religionists, who had helped them indriving out the Soviet troops in the 1980s and who are now helping them in theirfight to drive out the Americans and other NATO forces.

These observers  have  been saying that the intensifying violencein Afghanistan and the inability of the US-led forces to control it are due tothe sanctuaries available to Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban in Pakistaniterritory and the inability or reluctance of the Pakistan Army to destroy thesesanctuaries. While the sanctuaries of Al Qaeda in North Waziristan and of theTaliban in South Waziristan are being repeatedly attacked by the unmannedPredator aircraft of the US intelligence community, those of the Taliban in theQuetta area of Balochistan have largely been left untouched with neither thePakistan Army nor the American Predator aircraft targeting them. These observersare of the view that unless these sanctuaries are destroyed no amount of surgeand local militias will help.

The current operations of the Pakistan Army in the Bajaur Agency of the FATAand the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) are mainlytargeting the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which poses a threat to Pakistanand not the Afghan Taliban, headed by the Quetta-based Mulla Mohammad Omar,which the Pakistan Army continues to perceive as its strategic ally. While thePakistan Army has reduced the scale of its operations in the Bajaur Agency andits presence in South Waziristan, where Baitullah Mehsud, the Amir of the TTP isbased, in order to re-deploy the troops thus relieved on the Indian borderparticularly in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), its operations against the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e- Mohammadi (TNSM), headed by Maulana Fazlullah, in the Swat Valley  havenot so far been reduced.

While the Mehsuds and the Ahmedzai Wazirs of South Waziristan, who were inthe forefront of the Pakistani invasion of Kashmir in 1947-48 and in 1965, haveinformally agreed not to take advantage of the thinning out of the Pakistaniforces in these areas, the Pakistan Army has not yet been able to reach asimilar informal agreement with the TNSM, despite the fact that it is acomponent of the TTP. Moreover, the Pakistan Army is prepared to face the riskof a temporary  dilution of the Pakistani writ  in the  BajaurAgency and South Waziristan if the Mehsuds and the Ahmedzai Wazirs do not keepup their informal agreement not to create problems for the Army and the FrontierCorps.

It is not prepared to face a similar risk in the Swat Valley, which it seesas important for maintaining its writ in the NWFP.  It is concerned overthe recent increase in the activities of the Pakistani Taliban in Peshawar andis determined not to allow the TNSM undermine  the Government position inthe NWFP. The operations against the TNSM in the Swat Valley, which started inNovember,2007, have been continuing for over a year now without the Army and theFrontier Corps being able to make any headway in neutralising the TNSM. Evenlong before the Pakistan Army thinned out its presence in the FATA in the wakeof the tensions with India after the terrorist attack by the Lashkar-e-Toiba(LET)--acting alone or in association with Al Qaeda-- in Mumbai from November 26to 29,2008, it was facing difficulty in reinforcing its presence in the SwatValley.

Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), borrowedsome of the Iraqi ideas of Gen Petraeus even before the latter assumed commandof the US Central Command. He set up in some villages of the Swat Valley as wellas the FATA people's militias called Lashkars, which were trained and armed tocounter the Sunni forces of the TNSM and the Pakistani Taliban. A large numberof Shia Pashtuns were recruited by Kayani into these Lashkars and they weregiven the task of countering the TNSM and the TTP. The Sunnis of the PakistaniTaliban retaliated with vigour  against these Lashkars and killed a largenumber of them.

In October, 82 persons were killed and 241 injured when a suicide bomber blewhimself up in a grand Jirga held at Khadizai area of the predominantly ShiaAlikhel sub-tribe of the Pashtuns. The Jirga was specially convened to form atribal Lashkar against the Taliban.

Thirty-two people were killed and over 120 others injured in a blast justoutside a Shia  Imambargah called Alamdar in Koocha-e-Risaldar, locatedbehind the historic Qissa Khwani Bazaar, in the Peshawar area on December5,2008. A vehicle driven by a suicide bomber destroyed a multi-storey hotel, agirls’ school, and dozens of  shops selling crockery and plastic-wares.

On December 7, 2008, the Afghan Islamic Press disseminated a messagepurported to have been issued by Mulla Omar, which warned the US as follows inresponse to the reported new strategy of Petraeus without, however, naming him:"Today the world’s economy is facing growing risk from meltdown owing to thebelligerent and expansionist policies of US. This has left its negative impacton the globe and it is the collective duty of all to work for a lasting peace inthe world.  You should understand that no puppet regime will ever stand upto the current resistance movement. Nor you will justify the occupation of theIslamic countries under the so-called slogan of rehabilitation anymore.Deployment of more troops (by the US)  would lead to battles everywhere.The current armed clashes will spiral and your current casualties of hundredswill jack up to thousands. The US has imposed the war on the Afghan nation andthe followers of the path of Islamic resistance will  never abandon theirlegitimate struggle. The invading forces wrongly contemplate that they will be able to pit the Afghans against the mujahideen under the so-called label oftribal militias. No Afghan will play into the hands of the aliens and fightagainst his own brothers for worldly pleasure."

On December 13,2008, Pir Samiullah, who had formed one of the Lashkars at therequest of the Army, and  eight of his followers were killed by the TNSM inSwat . The TNSM members captured over 50 AK-47 rifles with ammunition and tworocket launchers issued to the Lashkar by the Pakistan Army

Over 40 persons, many of them Shias, including two policemen and fourchildren, were killed and 20 others  injured when a suicide bomber rammedhis explosive-laden car into a polling station set up in a school in Shalbandaivillage, located about six kilometres south of the Buner district headquarters,Daggar, on December 28,2008. The Swat chapter of the TTP has claimedresponsibility for the attack. Speaking on the group’s illegal FM radiochannel, TTP Swat chapter Deputy Head Maulana Shah Dauran said the bombing wasin retaliation for the death of six  TTP members gunned down in Shalbandaiby a local Lashkar set up by the Army. He warned that the revenge wasn’t yetover and that every person in Shalbandai would be eliminated for killing theTaliban members.

In addition to stepping up the attacks on the Lashkars, the TTP has alsoembarked on a programme of disrupting the movement of supplies to the US-ledNATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port. About 150 containers go to Afghanistan from Karachi every day. A majority of these containers crosses theTorkham border in the NWFP into Afghanistan while others take the Chaman routein Balochistan. In addition to this,  about 150 to 200 oil tankerstransport fuel from Karachi to Afghanistan via Torkham every day. About 100tankers carry fuel through the Chaman border post. Around 300 vehicles andcontainers have been burnt in six attacks  since December 1. The TTP hasprojected these attacks as in retaliation for the Predator strikes on the TTPhide-outs in South Waziristan.

Concerned over the attacks, US and other NATO officials have reportedly beennegotiating with the authorities of Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistanfor alternate routes to reduce their dependence on the Pakistan route. Not onlythe TTP, even the religious political parties of Pakistan and Nawaz Sharif'sPakistan Muslim League are opposed to the movement of supplies to the NATOforces in Afghanistan through Pakistani territory.

The TTP, which has till now been attacking the trucks and tankers only afterthey reach Peshawar, has warned that if the Predator strikes do not stop it willstart attacking the supplies everywhere in Pakistan. This would include at theKarachi port itself as the supplies are brought by ships. The Islamic Movementof Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Group (IMG), a splinter group of theIMU, are also likely to attack the supply convoys in Central Asia  when theUS starts using the alternate routes.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai.