Since July 15, 2007, when the Pakistani Taliban unilaterally terminated the 10-month old truce with the military regime, there has been a welter of violence in Waziristan. And despite the deployment of 90,000 troops along the Afghan border in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, a critical situation prevails in this region, which is vital to Islamabad, Kabul and Washington. Indeed, much of the progress in the ‘global war on terror’ would depend on how the action unfolds in what can increasingly be thought of as ‘ground zero’ in FATA.
The writ of the state has always been fragile in Waziristan and levels of violence have been continuously augmenting. Throughout 2005, 285 people, including 92 civilians and 158 terrorists, were killed in Waziristan in 165 incidents. In 2006, the death toll was 590, including 109 civilians, 144 soldiers and 337 terrorists, in 248 incidents. In 2007 (till August 24), approximately 746 people, including 94 civilians, 96 soldiers and 556 terrorists, have already been killed in 162 incidents, an unambiguous indication of the state of play in Pakistan’s most troubled region. At least 37 civilians, 52 soldiers and 157 terrorists have died after the truce broke down. Considering Islamabad's understated accounts, the suppression of the Press and erratic reportage, the actual numbers could, in fact, be much higher.
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Across North Waziristan, military convoys are being attacked on a regular basis with sophisticated explosive devices and, worryingly for Islamabad, the incidence of frontal assaults on "military outposts by the militants numbering 50 or even more" are increasinglybeing reported. Militants have already carried out at least six suicide attacks on military and othergovernment targets since the truce collapsed. While government installations and military positions in Waziristan are already being targeted, it is believed that militants from the tribal areas could also carry out ‘revenge attacks’ in other parts of the country. Reports indicate that an extensive manhunt has been launched for a group of seven suicide bombers who left North Waziristan to targetgovernment interests across the country. 60 militants are believed to have recently met at a madrassain the Dattakhel area of North Waziristan and tasked their ‘elder’, Maulana Ghanamzar, with preparing seven to eight individuals from Dattakhel for suicide missions.
Unsurprisingly, the fallout of spiralling violence in North Waziristan is being felt in neighbouring South Waziristan. After nearly two and a half years, militants attacked a military target at Dargai in South Waziristan on August 13, 2007. Earlier on August 9, sixteen Frontier Corps soldiers were abducted by the Taliban on Jandola-Sara Rogha road in South Waziristan. While one of the soldiers was killed, the militants have decided to release the others after a prisoners-swap deal with the Administration. Further, at least 19 militants and 12 soldiers were among 32 persons killed during clashes in South Waziristan on August 16-17. And on August 17, a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden jeep into a military vehicle near Jandola in South Waziristan, killing himself and wounding five soldiers. Incidentally, this was the first ever suicide attack in South Waziristan. The militants in South Waziristan have declared that in future they would coordinate their activities with their brethren in North Waziristan and "come to each other's rescue in case of fresh military operations by the Pakistan Army, or by the US through its forces deployed in Afghanistan." A Taliban spokesman in the South declared that they did not want to be "overtaken by events once thegovernment launched fresh military operations in North Waziristan." Militants in the North and South, it needs mention, have had little operational co-ordination in the past.
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There has also been a dispersal of extremism elsewhere in the FATA. Incidents and mobilisation activity have been reported from the Mohmand Agency, Bajaur Agency, and Khyber Agency.
The Taliban are now in effective control of most of Waziristan and, more crucially, have full freedom of movement and activities across the region. Their de facto control was officially acknowledged when the military regime signed an accord with them on September 5, 2006. As already stated, the September deal was dissolved unilaterally by the Taliban on July 15, 2007. The Musharraf regime had also signed a deal with the Taliban in April 2004 in South Waziristan, but that unravelled shortly thereafter, with its principal architect on the Taliban side, Nek Mohammad, turning renegade. With the virtual retreat of the state, Taliban/al Qaeda militants from a mélange of countries, including Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Arab world, have holed up in the region, which the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State John Gastright said "is a part of the country that has not been effectively governed since Alexander the Great was there."
The extent of state withdrawal is tangible. In fact, even during the truce period, senior officials seldom ventured into North Waziristan and reportedly never reviewed the state of play in the region. The administration virtually lives at the mercy of the militants and are unable to exercise any real authority. According to noted journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, "There are now few takers for the once prized jobs of political agents, assistant political agents, tehsildars (sub-district officials) and political moharrir (clerk). Civil servants in the near past offered bribes or used political influence to seek these jobs in tribal areas. Now they try to excuse themselves if posted in dangerous parts of FATA such as North Waziristan and South Waziristan." Another report, on July 29, 2007, noted: "In a letter to thegovernment that sounded more like a lamentation, a political agent stated that the khasadars (tribal police) had abandoned their duty without seeking his permission. All those appointed for 599 posts of the levies force had renounced their responsibilities and officers of the line departments had left their offices at the mercy of watchmen. Little wonder then that a line department office and a check-post are blown up every day. Junior tribal officers and moharrirs have not reported for work and tribal elders remain too scared to meet the political administration for fear of reprisal attacks from militants." So widespread is the fear that thegovernment, in the first week of August 2007, transferred cash for salaries of its employees to Miranshah, headquarters of North Waziristan, by a helicopter due to insecurity on the roads.
Immediately after the truce collapsed, Police and other government employees in Miranshah stopped reporting for duty after receiving death threats from the militants. Ominously, some soldiers of the Frontier Corps (FC) are reportedly deserting the Force due to regular and violent attacks by the militants in the FATA. One FC soldier is reported to have stated that he had deserted from the Force days before his deployment to North Waziristan because he did not "want to fight his own people." Military spokesperson Major General Waheed Arshad, however, termed the desertions "insignificant incidents." FC is the first line of defence against the Taliban and al Qaeda inWaziristan.
And across the border in Afghanistan, coalition troops are also finding it difficult to control the rapid escalation in violence. The Taliban have regrouped rather well along the Afghan countryside, particularly in provinces along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Consequently, violence is significant near the Pakistan border. Colonel Martin Schweitzer, the US Commander in the region stated on June 22, 2007, that the number of militants reported moving over the Afghan-Pakistan border has increased in recent months. Terrorist attacks in Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan where the U.S. military operates, rose 250 percent in May 2007 compared with May 2006, according to U.S. military sources. The burden of evidence so far suggests that the Taliban/al Qaeda have, in fact, been provided space by the military to operate in the Pakistani areas along the border.
While a debate on whether or not to bomb al Qaeda’s bases in Pakistan continues among policy makers in USA, Washington has clearly upped the ante on its counter-terrorism initiative with Pakistan. US authorities have reportedly pointed out locations of nine terrorist training camps in North Waziristan. They have also reportedly identified several new al Qaeda compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials stated could possibly be training operatives for terrorist strikes against targets beyond Pakistan. Officials said that "both American and foreign intelligence services had collected evidence leading them to conclude that at least one of the camps in Pakistan might be training operatives capable of striking Western targets. A particular concern is that the camps are frequented by British citizens of Pakistani descent who travel to Pakistan on British passports." According to US officials, the training camps had "yet to reach the size and level of sophistication of the Qaeda camps established in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, but groups of 10 to 20 men are being trained at the camps and al Qaeda infrastructure in the region is gradually becoming more mature." Fran Townsend, President Bush’s Homeland Security Adviser, stated, "They've been able to take advantage of the agreement between President Musharraf and the tribal elders in the Federally Administrated Tribal Area to find safe haven, to train, to recruit."
Islamabad has been striving since 2002 to bring order to the lawless frontier. In more ways than one, it is a signal that the Pakistan Army has failed in its quest for a military victory. Even the strategy of cease-fires and intermittent truce has come to a nought. The Taliban consolidation and violence on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border can, consequently, be expected to continue to grow in the foreseeable future.
Despite an expanding ensemble of internal problems, there does not appear to be a sufficient determination at Islamabad, to make the necessary changes in policy and strategic objectives that must precede effective action against Islamist extremism. Worse, as Stephen Cohen notes, "The great danger is that this time around, Pakistan may not have the internal resources to manage its own rescue."
Kanchan Lakshman is Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management; Assistant Editor,Faultlines: Writings on Conflict & Resolution. Courtesy,
