After months of ‘preparation’ – massive and often indiscriminate bombings in the region, as well as the massing of forces, blockades and endless curfews – there are now credible reports that the Pakistan Army is poised to ‘storm’ the principal strongholds of the Islamist terrorist groupings affiliated to the al Qaeda – Taliban – Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan complex, in Waziristan. For months, now, Pakistani Air Force and artillery units, backed by US Predator strikes, have been hammering away at nebulous ‘targets’ in the region, and the Army now appears confident that ground troops can go into what has long been regarded as Pakistan’s "‘black hole’ for security and intelligence forces".
But reports of an imminent ground campaign have already provoked political disquiet, with 19 Members of the National Assembly, including three federal ministers, elected from this region, submitting their resignations to Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gilani on September 29, 2009 (their resignations have not been accepted, though they insist, "we do not consider ourselves as Parliamentarians anymore"). The resigning Parliamentarians have warned of a ‘serious backlash’, and one of them, Saleh Shah, has declared, "This will be a major blunder, which will invoke (sic) a serious reaction from the tribesmen." Munir Aurakzai, the head of the Tribal Parliamentary Group, has noted that the ongoing aerial and artillery campaigns have already inflicted unbearable hardships on local tribesmen, who have "lost their properties and lives", with "hundreds of thousands" displaced.
The enormity of the aerial campaign can be partially assessed by the sheer loss of life already inflicted – before a ground campaign has even been initiated. At least 3,228 persons, including 2,480 categorised as ‘militants’, 545 civilians and 203 Security Forces (SF) personnel have already been killed in 2009 (till October 2) in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal database – with an overwhelming proportion of fatalities concentrated in the North and South Waziristan Agencies. These numbers may well be a severe under-estimate, with flows of information blocked off by denial of access to the media and other independent agencies. No verification of the categorisation of casualties is, of course, possible under the circumstances.
These fatalities add to at least 3,067 killed in 2008, including 1,709 ‘militants’, 1,116 civilians and 242 SF personnel – almost double the death count in 2007, when 1,681 persons, including 1,014 militants, 424 civilians and 243 SF personnel were killed in the region. In 2006, the death toll stood at 590 (337 ‘militants’, 109 civilians and 144 SF personnel).
As with the brutal and indiscriminate Swat campaigns, however, and in sharp contrast to the global response to the last stages of the Sri Lankan campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the relentless and often indiscriminate killings in FATA have provoked no more than a deafening silence from the international community. The projected illusion is that this area is being targeted essentially as the ‘epicentre’ of the anti-Western al-Qaeda – Taliban combine, and that what is being done is no more than necessary.
Both assumptions are manifestly false. For one thing, the various protagonists in Waziristan, and in the wider FATA region, are fighting a murky war, often at cross purposes. US objectives are, of course, by far the most obvious here, and they coincide with the general perception of the area being targeted essentially to ‘neutralize’ the al Qaeda – Taliban combine. Indeed, if US assessments can be relied upon, US drone attacks in the region – comprising the largest proportion, by far of such attacks in Pakistan – have been exceptionally ‘efficient’ (Pakistani sources strongly contest these assessments and allege that the numbers of those killed is far greater, and that a much larger proportion is civilian). A study in The Long War Journal notes that, of 88 US strikes within Pakistan since 2004, 78 strikes (88.6 per cent) have hit targets in North (36 strikes) and South (42 strikes) Waziristan. Indeed, all of the 30 strikes since April 1, 2009, have been in Waziristan. The study claims high accuracy levels, with more than one in three strikes killing a High Value Target (HVT). Civilian casualties, moreover, "have remained very low", though the study concedes that "it is difficult to determine the exact number of civilians killed" and that it uses "low-end estimates of casualties". On this count, of the 979 fatalities since 2004, just 9.6 per cent have been "identified as civilians".
A look at the targeted organisations, however, begins to reveal pernicious entanglements. The principal targets, in order of significance, include Baitullah Mehsud’s Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an organisation that is being vigorously targeted by Pakistani Forces as well, since it turned ‘rogue’ after the Lal Masjid debacle in July 2007, and directed its ire against Islamabad. Baitullah Mehsud has, in fact, been one of the HVTs neutralised in a US Predator strike, and the leadership of the group is currently uncertain; Hakimullah Mehsud is said to have taken command, but is also widely believed to have been killed in a succession war with another of the contenders, Wali-ur-Rehman. Others in the run for the top position in the TTP include Maulvi Faqir Muhammad and Qari Hussain.