Pakistani Successes May Sway U.S. Troop Decision - NYTimes.com

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By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ERIC SCHMITT

SARAROGHA, Pakistan — This windswept, sand-colored town in the badlands of western Pakistan is empty now, cleared of the militants who once claimed it as their capital. But its main brick buildings, intact and thick with dust, tell not of an epic battle, but of sudden flight.

A month after the Pakistani military began its push into the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan, militants appear to have been dispersed, not eliminated, with most simply fleeing. That recurring pattern illustrated the problems facing the Obama administration as it enters its final days of a decision on its strategy for Afghanistan.

Success in this region, in the remote mountains near the Afghan border, could have a direct bearing on how many more American troops are ultimately sent to Afghanistan, and how long they must stay.

Pakistan has shown increased willingness to tackle the problem, launching sweeping operations in the north and west of the country this year, but American officials are still urging it to do more, most recently in a letter from President Obama to Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, over the weekend.

On Tuesday, the military escorted journalists on a tour of the area, where it closely restricts access, showing piles of things they had seized, including weapons, bombs, photos and even a long, curly wig. “It all started from here,” said Brig. Muhammed Shafiq, the commander here. “This is the most important town in South Waziristan.”

But lasting success has been elusive, tempered by an agile enemy that has moved easily from one part of the tribal areas to the next — and even deeper into Pakistan — virtually every time it has been challenged.

American analysts expressed surprise at the relatively light fighting and light Pakistani Army casualties — seven soldiers in five days in Sararogha — supporting their suspicions that the Taliban fighters from the local Mehsud tribe and the foreign fighters who are their allies, including a large contingent of Uzbeks, have headed north or deeper into the mountains. In comparison, 51 Americans were killed in eight days of fighting in Falluja, Iraq, in 2004.

“That’s what bothers me,” an American intelligence officer said. “Where are they?”

The Pakistani military says it has learned from past failures in a region where it lost hundreds in fighting before. It spent weeks bombing the area before its 30,000 troops entered. It struck alliances with neighboring tribes.

But the pending campaign was no secret, allowing time for local people and militants to escape, similar to what happens during American operations in Afghanistan.

“They are fleeing in all directions,” said a senior Pakistani security official, who did not want to be identified while discussing national security issues. “The Uzbeks are fleeing to Afghanistan and the north, and the Mehsuds are fleeing to any possible place they can think of.”

But there was some fighting, as destruction in Sararogha’s market area shows, and the fact that the military now occupies the area is something of a success, analysts say. American officials have expressed measured praise for the Pakistani operation so far.

“The Pakistani Army has done pretty well, and they have learned lessons from the Swat campaign, including the use of close-air support from their fighter jets,” said a senior American intelligence official, referring to the army’s first offensive this spring.

But big questions remain: How long will the military be able to hold the territory? And once they leave, will the militants simply come back?

“Are they really winning the people — this is the big question,” said Talat Masood, a military analyst and former general in Islamabad, the capital. “They have weakened the Taliban tactically, but have they really won the area if the people are not with them?”

Winning them over will not be easy. Waziristan’s largely Pashtun population has been abandoned by the military in the past, including in 2005, when, after a peace deal, a military commander called Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Taliban, a “soldier of peace.” People who are from this area are still deeply skeptical of the army’s intentions.

“People want to know: how serious is the military this time?” said a military official who asked not to be named in order not to undermine the official position publicly.

The military argues that it is, saying that it has lost 70 soldiers in this operation so far, on top of more than 1,000 killed in the last several years of conflict.

Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, principal spokesman for the Pakistan military, said that about 50 percent of the Mehsud territory is now under army control, including most major towns and roads, and that the military would soon begin to press into villages where militants were hiding.

Finding a reliable local partner will be difficult. The Taliban and Al Qaeda have ruled the impoverished area for so long that they have altered its social structure, killing hundreds of tribal elders and making it hard for the military to negotiate.

The alliances that the military has struck with neighboring tribal leaders, including Hafiz Gul Bahadur, may also prove problematic. The senior Pakistani security official said Mr. Bahadur was hosting the families of two top Pakistani Taliban leaders.

Some American officials also voiced concern that if and when the Pakistani Army crushes the Mehsuds, it will declare victory and cut more permanent peace deals with other Pakistani militant factions, rather than fighting and defeating them.

But the Pakistani military argues that as long as the other groups are not attacking the Pakistani Army or state, it would be foolish to draw them into the war, particularly because Pakistan is not confident the United States will be around much longer.

Mr. Masood explained the thinking: “You are 10,000 miles away and we are going to live with them, so how can we take on every crook who is hostile to you?”

And there is history to overcome. One Pakistani intelligence official pointed to the American abandonment of the region in 1989, after the Soviet Union left Afghanistan. “If they leave in haste, like they left in the past, we will be back to the bad old days,” the official said. “Our jihadis would head back to Afghanistan, reopen training camps, and it will be business as usual.”

Sabrina Tavernise reported from Sararogha, Pakistan, and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Pakistani army shows off captured Taliban posts - washingtonpost.com

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'FOUNTAINHEAD OF TERRORISM'
Arsenal, signs of mini-state found

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 18, 2009

SARAROGHA, PAKISTAN -- A toy car booby-trapped with explosives, chemistry textbooks and handwritten case files from a Taliban court were among the debris left behind by fleeing Islamist militants in this remote village in the conflicted tribal region of South Waziristan.

The now-deserted village, which was retaken by Pakistani army forces two weeks ago and visited by Western journalists on Tuesday for the first time since, had been a stronghold of Taliban forces for nearly five years. Army officials described its capture as a military and psychological milestone in their month-old operation to flush militants out of the region.

"This place was a fountainhead of terrorism. All government authority was expelled, and the Taliban leaders even had press conferences here," said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a military spokesman, standing on the roof of a mosque that overlooked the rubble of a market, school and military fort that were destroyed in five days of heavy fighting.

Yet even though army officials said they had killed 180 Taliban fighters in Sararogha, bringing their reported enemy toll to more than 550 since the Waziristan operation began, they acknowledged that hundreds more had melted away into the vast desert scrub and craggy hills surrounding this outpost, testing the army's will to continue pursuing them.

The Obama administration has been pressing Pakistan to move more aggressively against Taliban forces, a message that national security adviser James L. Jones was reported to have carried to Pakistani officials during a visit last week. In particular, U.S. officials have urged the army to move into neighboring North Waziristan, where most fighters are thought to have fled.

But Pakistani officials have bristled at the suggestion. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi declared Monday that Pakistan "will not be prodded by outsiders" into conducting specific military operations. Although Pakistan and the United States cooperate closely in the war against Islamist terrorism, the partnership has been fraught with frustration and clashing strategic goals.

Public resentment against the United States has grown with persistent reports in the Pakistani media that Xe Services, the U.S. contractor formally known as Blackwater, is operating in Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban blamed Xe on Monday for a series of bombings against civilians, including a car bombing that killed more than 100 civilians in a Peshawar market late last month. In an English-language statement posted on its Web site, the Taliban said that Pakistani and U.S. government charges that insurgents were responsible for the blast were part of a plot "to create hatred among the common people" against the Taliban.

Xe is thought to have two Defense Department contracts in Pakistan -- one to construct U.S. training centers for the Frontier Corps, the Pakistani government security force that operates in the border regions, and another to assist in operations at a Pakistani air base in Baluchistan from where the CIA has launched missile attacks from unmanned aircraft against insurgent targets.

Amid the signs of bilateral military frictions, army officials seemed eager Tuesday to portray the recent capture of Sararogha, and another longtime Taliban stronghold in the village of Laddha about 20 miles north, as proof that their Waziristan campaign is moving ahead successfully. The army flew a group of journalists to the region by helicopter.

Army officials said they had carried out a three-phase strategy this month to encircle the area, attack Sararogha by air and finally send in ground forces. They said they met fierce resistance from rocket attacks and artillery in the surrounding hills but finally prevailed after a five-day battle.

Once in Sararogha, they found ample evidence of a Taliban mini-state. A school had been turned into a militia training center and courthouse, with classes in how to manufacture improvised explosives and formal hearings on local disputes. Directives on Taliban letterhead, left scattered in empty rooms, ordered certain mullahs to be given weapons and decreed that no marriage dowry should cost more than $900.

Morale seemed high among the hundreds of soldiers stationed in the two villages. Many wore long beards, and some saluted visiting officers with the Muslim greeting "Salaam aleikum." But they took pains to distinguish their notion of faith from the violent credo of the Taliban.

Officials in both towns said the majority of Taliban forces in the area seemed to be Pakistani, although they said a few had been Uzbek. There was not a single civilian visible in either place, only a few stray donkeys grazing among the rubble of ruined mosques, shops and schools. Army officials said that the inhabitants had fled during or before the recent fighting, but that once the region is secure, they hope the government can attract civilians back with new roads and development projects.

Despite the gung-ho mood in the wake of these recent advances, military officials acknowledged that the Taliban was well organized, armed and equipped, and that the campaign against the group is far from won. They estimated that there are 5,000 to 8,000 active Taliban fighters in Waziristan, which means that only a fraction have been killed.

"I do not see an end to this war," Maj. Nasir Khan said. "They want to stretch our resources thin and lure us into difficult areas. We cannot take on these monsters everywhere at once, but they are terrorists, and we must keep on fighting them."

Pressure From U.S. Strains Ties With Pakistan - NYTimes.com

By JANE PERLEZ

Published: October 26, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Obama administration is putting pressure on Pakistan to eliminate Taliban and Qaeda militants from the country’s tribal areas, but the push is straining the delicate relations between the allies, Pakistani and Western officials say.

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A man fleeing the offensive in South Waziristan being checked by soldiers in Dera Ismail Khan.

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Militants Kill 11 Pakistani Soldiers in Attacks (October 27, 2009)

The Pakistani military’s recent heavy offensive in South Waziristan has pleased the Americans, but it left large parts of Pakistan under siege, as militants once sequestered in the country’s tribal areas take their war to Pakistan’s cities. Many Pakistanis blame the United States for the country’s rising instability.

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrives in Pakistan this week, as she is scheduled to do, she will find a nuclear-armed state consumed by doubts about the value of the alliance with the United States and resentful of ever-rising American demands to do more, the officials said.

The United States is also struggling to address Pakistan’s concerns over the conditions imposed on a new American aid package of $7.5 billion over five years that the Pakistani military denounced as designed to interfere in the country’s internal affairs.

The Obama administration has endorsed the Pakistani Army’s recent offensive in South Waziristan, suggesting it showed overdue resolve. But it has also raised concerns about the Pakistani Army’s long-term objectives. How South Waziristan plays out may prove to be a bellwether for an alliance of increasingly divergent interests.

The special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, said Friday that the Obama administration would be trying to find out whether the army was simply “dispersing” the militants or “destroying” them, as the United States would like.

From the number of troops in South Waziristan, it was not clear that the army wanted to “finish the task,” said a Western military attaché, who spoke on the condition of anonymity according to diplomatic protocol.

The army would not take over South Waziristan as it had the Swat Valley, where the military is now an occupying force after conducting a campaign in the spring and summer that pushed the Taliban out, the officials said.

It remains to be seen how the campaign will play out in a region where the army has failed in the past, analysts said. The army has sent about 28,000 soldiers to South Waziristan to take on about 10,000 guerrillas, a relatively low ratio, according to military specialists.

In all, of the roughly 28,000 soldiers, there are probably about 11,000 army infantrymen, said Javed Hussain, a retired Pakistani Army brigadier. Instead of a ratio of one to one, he said, the ratio should be at least five to one.

The army appeared to have no plans to occupy South Waziristan, but rather to cut the militants “to size,” said Tariq Fatemi, who served briefly as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States in 1999.

With the uncertainty of American plans in Afghanistan, and the strong sentiment in Pakistan that India was “up to no good” in the restive province of Baluchistan and the tribal areas, Mr. Fatemi said, the army would not abandon the militant groups that it has relied on to fight as proxies in Afghanistan and in Kashmir against India.

The goal in South Waziristan, Mr. Fatemi said, was to eliminate the leadership that had become “too big of their boots” with the attacks on Pakistan’s cities. The army would like to find more pliant replacements as leaders, he said.

The militants’ war against the cities in the past three weeks had produced a wave of fear that shored up support for the army to fight back in South Waziristan, many Pakistanis said.

But the terror has also amplified complaints that the unpopular civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari, who is seen as slavishly pro-American, is unable to cope with the onslaught.

Mr. Zardari, whose relations with the Pakistani military appear increasingly strained, has not addressed the nation since the militants unfurled their attacks or since the army launched the offensive in South Waziristan.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik was pelted with stones last week when he visited the International Islamic University after two suicide bomb attacks on the campus killed six students, including women.

After the attack at the university, the government ordered all schools and universities closed in Punjab, the most populous province, a move that affected Pakistani families like never before.

“The impact is being felt in every home, before it was just the North-West Frontier Province,” said Jahangir Tareen, a member of Parliament and a member of the cabinet under President Pervez Musharraf.

When schools were ordered re-opened Monday, parents were still unhappy.

“The mood is as bleak as I remember,” said a well-to-do parent in Lahore who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “The government says the private schools must open, but security is up to the schools. Where is the government?”

The range and different style of attacks in the urban areas, particularly in Islamabad, the capital, and the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi, surprised Pakistani security officials, said a Western diplomat who is in frequent contact with them.

The Pakistani security services knew that sleeper cells had been put in place in both cities in the past six months, but their strength was unknown, the diplomat said. “These were not your scared suicide bomber boys from the villages, these were well trained commandos,” the diplomat said.

The assassination of an army brigadier as he drove through Islamabad last week further unnerved people, demonstrating that the militants had a cadre of spotters or observers probably marshaled from the increasing number of students attending radical religious schools in the capital, the diplomat said.

Whatever President Obama decides about troop levels in Afghanistan, Pakistan sees the United States and NATO headed for the exits, an outcome that encourages Pakistan to hang onto the militants that it has used as proxies, the Western diplomat said.

The fact that the United States had so far failed to persuade India to restart talks with Pakistan and that it was doing little to curb what Pakistan sees as the undue influence of India in Afghanistan was unsettling for Pakistan, Mr. Fatemi, the former ambassador, said.

On top of everything else, that feeling was driving a surge of anti-American sentiment, even among the elite, some Pakistanis said, increasing the challenges ahead.

“There is a general perception in the educated class that Pakistan is paying a very heavy price for fighting alongside the United States,” said Ashfaq Khan, a prominent economist and dean of the business school at the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad.

Pakistani Army Captures Taliban Stronghold - NYTimes.com

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By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After a week of fighting Taliban and Qaeda militants in the mountains of South Waziristan, the Pakistani Army said Saturday that it had captured a town important for both its symbolic and strategic value.

The town, Kotkai, most of whose 5,000 residents had already fled, is the home of the new leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, and one of the most feared Taliban commanders, Qari Hussain. Mr. Hussain is believed to be the organizer and trainer of the group’s suicide bombing squads.

The army has been struggling in the treacherous terrain in South Waziristan, long a militant sanctuary. Military officials said Saturday that Kotkai had been taken only after “intense fighting.” Four days ago, the militants repulsed the first army attempt to capture the town and killed nine soldiers, according to a military intelligence officer.

It was the first notable sign of progress in what military analysts say will be an arduous slog for the army against a resilient enemy. And it came as Pakistan has been enduring a withering series of terrorist attacks over the past three weeks.

At a military briefing Saturday, the information minister, Qamar Zaman Kaira, acknowledged that the attacks, which have focused on police and government sites and have killed about 200 people, had taken a serious toll. But he insisted that “the nation will not be terrorized.”

The farther the army tries to penetrate South Waziristan, the harder the fighting will get as soldiers encounter defensive positions dug into the sides of mountains that the guerrillas will battle hard to keep, military analysts and residents of the area said.

For example, on the southeast axis of the army’s attack into the Taliban stronghold, soldiers will soon encounter the defensive positions leading to Kaniguram, a village about 6,700 feet high that serves as the hide-out of Uzbek fighters, some of the most battle-hardened around, a former resident of the area said.

“The military’s movement is faster than in their previous campaigns,” a former government official from North Waziristan said, referring to three short-lived army campaigns that ended in negotiated settlements with the Taliban. “But the more they get inside the sanctuary, the more they will be bogged down.”

Time may also be working against the army. In past years, many of the Taliban militants fighting American and NATO forces in Afghanistan have come to Waziristan as winter approached to train and prepare for the next year’s fighting.

Although there is evidence that the seasonal fighting in Afghanistan has become a more year-round affair, the concern is that any Taliban fighters who do cross the border into Pakistan could be used against the army in South Waziristan. One militant organizer in the region, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the migration had already started, potentially swelling the number of active militants in the region well beyond the present estimates of 7,000 to 10,000.

Reinforcements for the militants were also coming from other parts of the Pakistani tribal region, the militant organizer said.

Still, Pakistani soldiers are receiving more support than they did in past campaigns, including better winter gear and air support from fighter jets, the former Waziristan official said.

American officials have praised the Waziristan offensive, after months of pressure on Pakistani officials to begin. But at the military briefing, the army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said that the fight was a purely a Pakistani enterprise, unaided by the United States or anyone else.

There have been no reported missile attacks by American drones in South or North Waziristan against Qaeda targets since the beginning of the Pakistani Army offensive a week ago. Both South and North Waziristan have been the focus of the more than 40 drone attacks in the region this year.

Pakistan had asked the United States to refrain from drone attacks while the army operation was under way in South Waziristan, a senior Pakistani government official said Saturday.

Families continued to flee South Waziristan, and Mr. Kaira said the government was granting the refugees a month’s supply of food and a monthly stipend worth about $50.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it still had no access to North or South Waziristan to care for civilians. “We are concerned by the lack of access granted to humanitarian organizations like the I.C.R.C. whose role it is to protect and assist victims of fighting,” the committee said in a statement.

Elsewhere, in the tribal belt in Bajaur, a missile fired from a drone killed 22 people in the town of Damadola on Saturday, two Pakistani officials said.

The strike appeared to be aimed at a senior Pakistani Taliban leader, Faqir Mohammad, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. They said two relatives of Mr. Mohammad were killed.

Jane Perlez reported from Islamabad, and Pir Zubair Shah from Peshawar, Pakistan.

IRIN - Harrowing tales of flight from Waziristan

PESHAWAR, 22 October 2009 (IRIN) - Many internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have fled South Waziristan tell harrowing tales of rockets hitting roads or houses as they tried to leave areas where Taliban militants are fighting government forces.

“I watched my cousin’s home burst into flames after being hit by a bomb. Fortunately he had taken his family away last week,” said Miran Gul, an IDP from a village near Makine in South Waziristan.

Miran Gul said he had to “walk for over 12 hours” to reach the town of Razmak in North Waziristan, from where he got transport to Peshawar.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in its latest situation report said: “The IDPs report hardships on their way out of the conflict area as all main roads are blocked and tightly controlled… there is a curfew imposed in all conflict-affected parts of South Waziristan.”

Dawn newspaper reported that 12 members of a family were killed after being hit by a bomb while trying to flee South Waziristan.

Access to the IDPs is a continuing problem, but help is being provided.

Billi Bierling, a spokesperson for OCHA in Pakistan, told IRIN: “Even though access is a problem due to the difficult security situation in the area, the UN agencies and their implementing partners are providing much-needed help to the IDPs. So far the IDPs are staying mainly with host families or in rented accommodation. However, the IDPs who are registered are receiving food and non-food items, such as bedding, kitchen utensils, towels, soap, etc.”

No IDP camps - yet

Citing the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) government’s Social Welfare Department, OCHA’s situation report said 106,800 IDPs were now registered in neighbouring Tank and Dera Ismail Khan districts in NWFP, with 85,000 in Dera Ismail Khan.

Some 26,300 IDPs have arrived in the two districts since 13 October, whilst 80,500 came to the area between May and August 2009, it said.

“At present, the IDPs are accommodated with host families and no camps are set up, neither in Dera Ismail Khan nor Tank districts. However, the authorities might consider camps in the future, as more civilians leave the areas of conflict,” OCHA said.

Bierling said the aid community was expecting the current number of IDPs “to increase to 250,000 if military operations continue”.

Meanwhile, NWFP Relief Commissioner Shakeel Qadar Khan told IRIN: “Provision has been made for the IDPs to get Rs 5,000 [US$60] a month.”

Winter approaching

One of the main concerns of IDPs is how long they may be displaced for. “Winter is approaching fast. It will be hard to move back if roads close due to snow,” said Miran Gul. He is also concerned about what could become of their homes if “no one [is there] to clear away the snow on roofs”.

The fighting is reported by people who have come out of the area as being “fierce”, and people are concerned about relatives still trapped there.

“My brother is still based near Wana [principal town of Waziristan] with our parents, who refused to leave the family home. Contact is difficult, because telephone services are bad, and I worry constantly about them,” said Azam Khan, now in Peshawar.

Power Struggle Ensues After Taliban Chief's Apparent Death

By Joshua Partlow and Haq Nawaz Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 9, 2009

KABUL, Aug. 8 -- In the power vacuum created by the apparent death of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, a gun battle broke out Saturday between Taliban leaders vying to seize his mantle in the tribal borderlands, Pakistani officials said, the first indications of a struggle that could prompt fighters to move across the border into Afghanistan.

The effect of the apparent death of Mehsud, who deployed his fighters mainly against Pakistani targets, "could be to free up militants to come into Afghanistan," said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in that country.

"Baitullah Mehsud was putting such pressure on the government of Pakistan that I don't know if his successor or successors will do the same," McChrystal said in an interview Saturday, emphasizing that it is difficult at this point to predict how Mehsud's fighters will react.

The prospect of more fighters flowing into Afghanistan comes at a particularly challenging time for U.S. and NATO forces, as Marines battle the Taliban there in the southern province of Helmand and insurgents threaten to unleash further violence ahead of the Aug. 20 presidential election. The U.S. military has picked up reports that in addition to suicide bombings and other high-profile attacks, the Taliban plans to intimidate voters into staying away from the polls, McChrystal said.

There have been reports that "people who show up with ink on their finger will have their finger cut off," he said. "They probably have the intent to try to disrupt the election. But they also are scared of the election, because they wouldn't try to do it if the election was nothing to them. Last time, they didn't pay it much mind. This time, I think they're clearly concerned" about Afghans' growing acceptance of governance.

For at least the second consecutive day since the U.S. missile strike Wednesday that Pakistani and American officials say they believe killed Mehsud, Taliban fighters gathered in the South Waziristan tribal district Saturday to choose new leadership. During the meeting in the Sara Rogha area, an argument and shooting broke out between two potential successors to Mehsud, Wali-ur-Rehman Mehsud and Hakimullah Mehsud, according to two Pakistani officials.

"The exchange of fire, reports suggest, took place between two important contenders for the Taliban chief's slot," Interior Minister Rehman Malik said in an interview. "According to information, one of them has been killed, but as of now we can't say who it was."

A government official in South Waziristan said intelligence reports indicate that the man killed Saturday was Hakimullah Mehsud, a close aide to Baitullah Mehsud who has been linked to attacks on NATO convoys. However, the Associated Press reported receiving a call from Hakimullah Mehsud on Saturday morning.

In another potential sign of disarray within the Pakistani Taliban ranks, some fighters called reporters Saturday insisting that Baitullah Mehsud was alive. A Taliban fighter called a Washington Post reporter to say he was 100 percent sure of it, although he could not provide evidence.

A former National Assembly member from South Waziristan, Maulana Mirajuddin, also said he received a call from a "very trusted associate" claiming that Mehsud was alive.

However, another leader of the Mehsud tribe from the area said such assertions were merely attempts to sow confusion, adding that "the Taliban are trying to hush up the matter to keep the loosely connected Pakistani Taliban intact."

Mehsud's suspected death could have far-reaching implications for the Pakistani army's fight against the Taliban, with some observers suggesting that the army might suspend plans for a ground invasion of South Waziristan to pursue a less confrontational policy.

"A new Taliban leadership with a softer image will be introduced to get public support in the country," said another Mehsud tribal leader from South Waziristan who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The army might try to "bring in some moderate leadership," he said.

A Pakistani intelligence official said the fate of the South Waziristan operation hinges on how Baitullah Mehsud's fighters react.

"If there is again a surge in suicide bombings and subversive acts," he said, "then the offensive could be launched soon."

Khan reported from Islamabad. Special correspondent Shaiq Hussain contributed to this report.

Baitullah Mehsud Dead, Aide Confirms

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who led a violent campaign of suicide attacks and assassinations against the Pakistani government, has been killed in a US missile strike, a Taliban commander and aide to Mehsud said Friday.

‘I confirm that Baitullah Mehsud and his wife died in the American missile attack in South Waziristan,’ Kafayatullah told The Associated Press by telephone. He would not give any further details.

Earlier on Friday, three Pakistani intelligence officials said the militant commander had been killed in the missile strike and his body had been buried.

But one of the three said no intelligence agent had actually seen Baitullah Mehsud's body.

Intelligence sources have confirmed Baitullah’s death, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told reporters in Islamabad, adding that authorities would travel to the site of the strike to verify his death.

‘To be 100 per cent sure, we are going for ground verification,’ Qureshi said. ‘And once the ground verification re-confirms, which I think is almost confirmed, then we'll be 100 per cent sure.’

A senior US intelligence official had earlier said there were strong indications that Mehsud was among those killed in Wednesday's missile attack, but he did not elaborate.

If confirmed, Mehsud's demise would be a major boost to Pakistani and US efforts to eradicate the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Mehsud has al-Qaeda connections and has been suspected in the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Pakistan viewed him as its top internal threat and has been preparing an offensive against him. For years, though, the US considered Mehsud a lesser threat to its interests than some of the other Pakistani Taliban, their Afghan counterparts and al-Qaeda, because most of his attacks were focused inside Pakistan, not against US and Nato troops in Afghanistan. That view appeared to change in recent months as Mehsud's power grew and concerns mounted that increasing violence in Pakistan could destabilise the country and threaten the entire region. But while Mehsud's death would be a big blow to the Taliban in Pakistan, he has deputies who could take his place. Whether a new leader could wreak as much havoc as Mehsud depends largely on how much pressure the Pakistani military continues to put on the network, especially in the tribal area of South Waziristan. The Pakistani intelligence officials said Mehsud was killed in Wednesday's missile strike on his father-in-law's home and that his body was buried in the village of Nardusai in South Waziristan, near the site of the strike. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly. One official said he had seen a classified intelligence report stating Mehsud was dead and buried, but that agents had not seen the body since the area is under Taliban control. Interior Minister Rehman Malik had earlier told reporters outside Parliament he could confirm the death of Mehsud's wife but not of the Taliban leader himself, although information pointed in that direction. ‘Yes, (a) lot of information is pouring in from that area that he's dead, but I'm unable to confirm unless I have solid evidence,’ Malik had said. A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said ‘about 70 per cent’ of the information pointed to Mehsud's being dead. Another senior Pakistani intelligence official said phone and other communications intercepts — he would not be more specific — had led authorities to suspect Mehsud was dead, but he also stressed there was no definitive evidence yet. An American counterterrorism official said the US government was also looking into the reports. The official indicated the United States did not yet have physical evidence — remains — that would prove who died. But he said there are other ways of determining who was killed in the strike. He declined to describe them. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the matter publicly. A local tribesman, who also spoke on condition his name not be used, said Mehsud had been at his father-in-law's house being treated for kidney pain, and had been put on a drip by a doctor, when the missile struck. The tribesman claimed he attended the Taliban chief's funeral. Last year, a doctor for Mehsud announced the militant leader had died of kidney failure, but the reports turned out to be false. In Afghanistan, Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said Mehsud's fighters would cross the border into eastern Afghanistan occasionally to help out one of most ruthless Afghan insurgent leaders Siraj Haqqani. ‘He was an international terrorist that affected India, Pakistan and Afghanistan,’ Azimi said without confirming Mehsud was dead. In March, the State Department authorised a reward of up to $5 million for the militant chief. Increasingly, American missiles fired by unmanned drones have focused on Mehsud-related targets. Pakistan publicly opposes the strikes, saying they anger local tribes and make it harder for the army to operate. Still, many analysts suspect the two countries have a secret deal allowing them. Malik, the interior minister, said Pakistan's military was determined to finish off Pakistan's Taliban. ‘It is a targeted law enforcement action against Baitullah Mehsud's group and it will continue till Baitullah Mehsud's group is eliminated forever,’ he said. Pakistan's record on putting pressure on the Taliban network is spotty. It has used both military action and truces to try to contain Mehsud over the years, but neither tactic seemed to work, despite billions in US aid aimed at helping the Pakistanis tame the tribal areas. Mehsud was not that prominent a militant when the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 after the September 11 attacks, according to Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for the tribal regions. In fact, Mehsud has struggled against such rivals as Abdullah Mehsud, an Afghan war veteran who had spent time in Guantanamo Bay. But a February 2005 peace deal with Mehsud appeared to give him room to consolidate and boost his troop strength. Within months of that accord, dozens of pro-government tribal elders in the region were gunned down on his command. In December 2007, Mehsud became the head of a new coalition called the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistan's Taliban movement. Under his guidance, the group killed hundreds of Pakistanis in suicide and other attacks. Analysts say the reason for Mehsud's rise in the militant ranks is his alliances with al-Qaeda and other violent groups. US intelligence has said al-Qaeda has set up its operational headquarters in Mehsud's South Waziristan stronghold and neighbouring North Waziristan. Mehsud has no record of attacking targets in the west, although he has threatened to attack Washington. However, he is suspected of being behind a 10-man cell arrested in Barcelona in January 2008 for plotting suicide attacks in Spain. Pakistan's former government and the CIA have named him as the prime suspect behind the December 2007 killing of Benazir Bhutto. He has denied a role.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/04-intelligence-sources-have-confirmed-baitullah-death-fm-qureshi-qs-06

Pakistan Injects Precision Into Air War on Taliban

By ERIC SCHMITT

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s Air Force is improving its ability to pinpoint and attack militant targets with precision weapons, adding a new dimension to the country’s fight against violent extremism, according to Pakistani military officials and independent analysts.

The Pakistani military has moved away from the scorched-earth artillery and air tactics used last year against insurgents in the Bajaur tribal agency. In recent months, the air force has shifted from using Google Earth to sophisticated images from spy planes and other surveillance aircraft, and has increased its use of laser-guided bombs.

The changes reflect an effort by the Pakistani military to conduct its operations in a way that will not further alienate the population by increasing civilian casualties and destroying property. But they are also dictated by necessity as the military takes its campaign into areas where it is reluctant to commit ground troops, particularly in the rugged terrain of Waziristan, where it had suffered heavy losses.

Military analysts say the airstrikes alone cannot ultimately substitute for ground forces or for better counterinsurgency training. But they say the airstrikes have become a valuable tool for Pakistan in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in sometimes inaccessible terrain.

Since May, F-16 multirole fighter jets have flown more than 300 combat missions against militants in the Swat Valley and more than 100 missions in South Waziristan, attacking mountain hide-outs, training centers and ammunition depots, Pakistani military officials said.

In conjunction with infantry fire, artillery barrages and helicopter gunship attacks, military officials say, the air combat missions reinvigorated the military campaign in Swat and have put increasing pressure on the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, in South Waziristan.

Interviews with Pakistani fighter pilots and senior commanders offered a rare window into this other air war — a much larger but less heralded campaign that runs parallel to the three dozen secret missile strikes carried out this year by Central Intelligence Agency drones in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas.

The air force’s new tools and tactics have several sources. The air force has without fanfare accepted some American assistance, like sophisticated surveillance equipment and high-grade images.

But sensitive to anti-American fervor in the country, Pakistani officials have refused most outside aid, developing a small corps of ground spotters largely on their own, and occasionally tapping the Internet for online assistance.

Pakistani officials are urging the Obama administration to lease Pakistan upgraded F-16s, until its own new fighters are delivered in the next year or two. This would allow Pakistani pilots to fly night missions, impossible with their current aircraft.

Pakistan has argued that it needs the more advanced versions of the F-16 to more effectively battle the Taliban insurgency. In the past, American officials raised concerns that Pakistan’s arms purchases and troop deployments were geared mainly to bolstering its ability to fight its traditional enemy to the east, India. “Of course, there is a real threat from India,” Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, Pakistan’s air force chief of staff, said in an interview at his headquarters here. “But right now we have to tackle the threat from the militants.”

Nearly every day in the past few months, Pakistani warplanes have pummeled militant targets in the contested Swat Valley and South Waziristan. The campaigns are a big change from operations in Bajaur last fall.

“The biggest handicap we had in Bajaur was that we didn’t have good imagery,” Air Chief Marshal Qamar said. “We didn’t have good target descriptions. We did not know the area. We were forced to use Google Earth.

“I didn’t want to face a similar situation in Swat,” he said.

In advance of the Swat campaign, the air force equipped about 10 F-16s with high-resolution, infrared sensors, provided by the United States, to conduct detailed reconnaissance of the entire valley.

The United States has also resumed secret drone flights performing military surveillance in the tribal areas, to provide Pakistani commanders with a wide array of videos and other information on militants, according to American officials.

In most cases, officials said, the Pakistani Army provides target information to the air force, which confirms the locations on newly detailed maps. Identifying high-value targets through the use of army spotters or, in some cases, a new, small group of specially trained air force spotters, the air force was able to increase its use of laser-guided bombs to 80 percent of munitions used in Swat, from about 40 percent in Bajaur, Air Chief Marshal Qamar said.

Another change was the mass evacuation of civilians. About two million people were displaced, sometimes with only a few hours’ notice, as part of an effort to get civilians out of conflict areas to reduce their casualties.

Some American officials voice skepticism about Pakistani claims of success. “We don’t have access to battle-damage assessment or the information on the actual strike execution, so we cannot make a qualitative comparison of what the intended effect was versus the actual effect,” said an American adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity, to avoid jeopardizing his job.

Officials of human rights organizations say the military has not been able to eliminate all civilian casualties from airstrikes and ground fire, but they agree that the numbers are down.

“Certainly, the level of civilian casualties in this phase of the conflict has been lower than in previous operations in the tribal areas,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, based in Lahore, Pakistan.

The air force still operates under limitations. Because the F-16s are equipped to fly only by day, the militants move and conduct operations at night. Indeed, not one of the 21 main militant leaders in Swat has been killed or captured, Pakistani officials acknowledge. In addition, the Pakistani jets cannot be refueled in midair, as American fighters can, limiting how long they can remain over a target area.

In South Waziristan, as the army mulls a ground war, the air force continues to attack militants’ hide-outs and training camps as well as storage caves and tunnels with 500-pound and 2,000-pound bombs.

“We’re still developing our plans for South Waziristan,” Air Chief Marshal Qamar said. “We are preparing to ramp up. I think Baitullah Mehsud is getting the message, and the message is, if he keeps doing these things, we’ll hit him.”

Pakistani Pledge to Rout Taliban In Tribal Region Is Put on Hold

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 27, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Soon after Pakistan launched its offensive against the Taliban this spring, President Asif Ali Zardari declared that the mission would go beyond pushing the Islamist militia out of the Swat Valley. "We're going to go into Waziristan," he said.

More than two months later, that still has not come to pass. Instead, the planned invasion of South Waziristan, a Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuary along the Afghanistan border, has been delayed by the refugee crisis spawned by fighting in Swat, an overstretched military unwilling to let its guard down with India and the difficulty in isolating the Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, according to Pakistani and American officials.

Pakistan's military has blockaded the tribal district and bombed it from the air, and it insists that the ground assault will proceed. But as the clock ticks, military analysts worry that fighting in the mountains will be more difficult as the weather turns cold in the fall. The delay has raised questions about Pakistan's commitment to waging war against Taliban fighters the state has nurtured in the past.

"It's an insane dream to expect anything different from the Pakistani government," said Ali Wazir, a South Waziristan native and a politician with the secular Awami National Party. "The Taliban are the brainchildren of the Pakistan army for the last 30 years. They are their own people. Could you kill your own brother?"

Mehsud is believed to be responsible for the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, as well as many of the recent suicide bombings in Pakistan. American officials, however, said they have not urged Pakistan to launch the operation because of the scope of problems in the Swat Valley, where 2 million refugees were displaced by the ongoing military operation there.

"Baitullah Mehsud is a dreadful man, and his elimination is an imperative. However, the first imperative is to secure the areas the refugees are going back into," Richard C. Holbrooke, the U.S. envoy to the region, said in an interview.

Although Holbrooke said it could be beneficial to have simultaneous offensives -- the U.S. Marines on the Afghanistan side of the border and the Pakistani army in the tribal regions to the east -- the greater concern is unfinished business elsewhere. "Why would I push them to start an offensive when they have 2 million people they have to protect first?" Holbrooke said.

The Pakistani military operation against the Taliban was planned to unfold in three phases, starting in April with the Frontier Corps paramilitary force moving into areas around the Swat Valley, the former tourist destination where the Taliban seized control. The following month, two Pakistani divisions, or about 40,000 soldiers, led a ground operation into the valley. They have since regained control, although fighting continues and the Taliban leadership there remains largely intact. The third and most difficult phase was to be a ground operation into South Waziristan.

But the offensive in Swat pushed some 2 million people from their homes, and the fighting damaged hundreds of schools, homes and businesses. The military now must orchestrate the return of thousands of refugees each day along with rebuilding and trying to prevent the Taliban from returning, as it has done in the past. The Taliban overwhelmed the police before the operation and residents are skeptical about whether the military can keep control.

American officials are concerned that the Pakistani military might not stay in Swat long enough to ensure residents' safety. "Failing to hold in Swat would be a calamity," said a U.S. official in Pakistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I hope they're thinking about it in terms of a plan and not on a timetable."

One Pakistani diplomat said American officials are not happy with the level of coordination involved in providing money and services to the returning refugees. "In their heart of hearts, I think they feel that Pakistan will mess up the repatriation," the diplomat said. "They feel . . . probably they'll go overboard, they won't resettle them, and you'll have a potential quicksand where you'll breed another strand of terrorist resistance."

Pakistani officials insist that they are focused on the refugees and that they do not want to rush into opening new fronts against the Taliban. Pakistan has already launched two operations into South Waziristan in recent years that failed to dislodge the Taliban. Since 2007, more than 2,200 Pakistani soldiers, police and intelligence officers have been killed in Swat and the tribal areas, and more than 5,300 have been injured.

"We would not like to do anything haphazardly. If you open so many fronts at the same time, then the danger is you will not achieve success on any front. So we would like to move with utmost circumspection," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit. The tribal areas are "a different ballgame and we need to understand how difficult it is."

Part of the reason the Pakistani government is wary about launching the Waziristan operation is that there is little appetite to remove more troops from the 140,000-strong force that mans the eastern border with India. Two brigades have already left to join the Swat operation. "That leaves us very little," a Pakistani intelligence official said.

Fighting in South Waziristan also poses a much greater challenge than in Swat. More than 400,000 people live in the tribal district, which is a bit larger than Delaware. Baitullah Mehsud commands about 10,000 to 12,000 fighters, including 4,000 foreign fighters, according to Pakistani intelligence officials. He pays his foot soldiers $60 to $80 a month, higher than the average local policeman's salary. Al-Qaeda, meanwhile, has increased its focus on uniting the Taliban and other radical Islamist groups in the fight against Pakistan, betting its success on the survival of the Taliban, according to intelligence officials.

"It will be longer and bloodier," another intelligence official said of the fight against Baitullah Mehsud. "He's been made into someone 10 feet tall."

Mehsud's stature has grown in part because of recent decisions by other Taliban commanders, such as Maulvi Nasir and Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who once cooperated with Pakistan but have announced their intention to fight security forces. Their representatives said they have been outraged by missile strikes from unmanned American aircraft. Instead of being able to rely on rival Taliban commanders to assist the army, the drone attacks have unified them against the state, intelligence officials said.

To add to the tactical problems, it is unclear whether the army would be greeted in South Waziristan with the same degree of public support it enjoyed in Swat. The government there has angered Mehsud tribesmen by arresting people and shutting down businesses under regulations that allow punishment based on tribal affiliation.

The initial stages of the South Waziristan operation have begun. Pakistani aircraft, along with unmanned American planes, have attacked Mehsud's territory in recent weeks. Soldiers have deployed into neighboring North Waziristan and have imposed an economic blockade, trying to withhold food and supplies from the Taliban, said a U.S. defense official in Washington.

The official said Pakistan likely wants "to make sure they have everything working in their favor before they actually pull the trigger on a ground assault."

"It's the hardest nut to crack," the official said. "There's no doubt about that."

Staff writer Karen DeYoung in Washington and special correspondent Haq Nawaz Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Mehsuds in Pakistan Held Responsible for Taliban Leader's Actions

By Joshua Partlow and Haq Nawaz Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- The Sina Diagnostic Center and Trust does not appear to be a menacing enterprise. The clinical pathology laboratory's 15 staff members conduct ultrasounds, X-rays and CAT scans and run free hepatitis and HIV tests for poor people and refugees in this teeming northwestern city.

That did not stop about a dozen Pakistani government revenue officers and police from marching up to the lab's second-story office this month to demand that the owner, Noor Zaman Mehsud, shut it down. They ushered patients and staff members outside, pulled down the metal gates and wrapped white cloth around the padlocks. Within 15 minutes, they were gone.

"They just said, 'You are a member of the Mehsud tribe, and we are going to seal up this business,' " Mehsud recalled. "My crime is that I belong to the Mehsuds."

Beyond the frustration of closing a business he ran for nine years and the sting of losing an income averaging $1,400 a week, the most vexing part of Mehsud's situation is that he is on the wrong side of the law. The Pakistani government has declared war on Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud and his network of several thousand fighters in the nearby tribal district of South Waziristan. And under regulations formulated a century ago by British colonial rulers, Pakistan's tribes are still bound by a legal concept known as "collective responsibility," under which any tribal member can be punished for the crimes of another.

The crackdown on the Mehsuds was spelled out in an order from the top political official in South Waziristan, Shahab Ali Shah, on June 14. Because the Mehsud tribesmen had not handed over Taliban fighters, Shah wrote, he was satisfied that they had acted "in an unfriendly and hostile manner toward the state" and that the tribe's "people and their activities are prejudicial to peace and public tranquillity."

Senior government officials have said repeatedly that their target is Baitullah Mehsud and his followers, not his entire tribe, but Shah's wording was broader. He ordered the "seizure, where they may be found, of all members of the Mehsud tribe and confiscation of movable/immovable property belonging to them in the North-West Frontier Province and the arrest and taking into custody of any person of the tribe wherever he is found."

That sweeping order has led to the closure of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of businesses in towns such as Dera Ismail Khan, Tank and Peshawar in North-West Frontier Province, according to lawyers, human rights officials and residents. One South Waziristan political official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said 25 Mehsuds have been arrested in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank.

"This is the law of the jungle, not for civilized people. They are treating people like animals," said Noor Zaman Mehsud, the 39-year-old lab owner, who denied he had any connection to the Taliban. "If I am a criminal, they should arrest me. But they are giving other people's punishments to me."

A few hundred thousand people in Pakistan belong to the Mehsud tribe, a Pashtun network divided into three major clans: the Manzai, the Bahlolzai and the Shaman Khel. Although they are scattered across the country, their home territory is South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan and is a refuge for fighters operating in both countries. For a civilian, it is not a welcoming place, caught as it is between the repressive rule of the Taliban and the military's preparations for a ground invasion. From the skies, Pakistani fighter jets and U.S. unmanned aircraft regularly bombard Taliban targets.

The violence has pushed tens of thousands of Mehsuds out of South Waziristan. But there is little respite wherever they turn.

"They are asking the people who are besieged, the people who have left their homes, 'Why you are not tackling the terrorists?' " said Said Alam Mehsud, a doctor from the same sub-tribe as Baitullah Mehsud. "Just imagine, what a demand. It's like if America asked me: 'Why are you practicing as a pediatrician? Why have you not captured Osama bin Laden?' "

The move to arrest and seize property of "hostile or unfriendly" tribal people is allowed under Section 21 of the 1901 Frontier Crimes Regulations, a legal framework developed to help the British Raj control rebellious Pashtuns. The regulations, which tribal leaders have tried to repeal or amend for years, give vast powers to the top official in each tribal district, known as the political agent. Aimal Khan, a tribal areas specialist with Sungi, a Pakistani humanitarian organization, said political agents are popularly referred to as "kings without crowns."

In the past, the regulations have been used to block tribal movements, recover hostages and punish those who attack government installations. Latif Afridi, a lawyer and expert on tribal laws, compared Shah's order to economic sanctions against a hostile country. The current pursuit of Mehsuds is not particularly widespread, but it remains an affront to human rights, he said.

"This is an order which is a remnant of the colonial days. Mehsuds should be treated as Pakistanis, their fundamental human rights respected," Afridi said. "It is a very cruel law, but so long as it is a law, I would definitely concede that the political agent has this power."

Habibullah Khan, a senior government official for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, of which South Waziristan is a part, said the collective punishment policy does not mean the government will make "blanket arrests" of Mehsud tribesmen, but rather allows authorities to capture criminals. Another senior FATA official said five close supporters and financiers of Baitullah Mehsud had been arrested.

"We will be very choosy in our activities against the tribesmen in South Waziristan agency, as we know all of them are not terrorists," Khan said.

In June, Abdul Karim Mehsud, a lawyer, filed a petition with the Peshawar High Court asking for Shah's order to be repealed on the grounds that it is discriminatory and that taking such action in North-West Frontier Province is outside the jurisdiction of the tribal area political agent.

The FATA's Khan argued that arrest warrants for Mehsud tribesmen from South Waziristan are applicable outside that region. Lawyers familiar with tribal regulations said the Supreme Court has been divided on the issue. Lawyer Mehsud said last week that his petition had been denied.

"The actions by the government against the Mehsud people are pushing them back toward the Taliban," said Saleh Shah Qureshi, a senator from South Waziristan. "People are going back to Waziristan."

Bilal Mehsud, 24, is not sure where to turn. His father's cement business, Madina Traders in Peshawar, was shuttered last week by a South Waziristan official and tribal police. He lives in Saudi Arabia but is home on vacation. Now police have issued arrest warrants for him and his father, he said, adding, "I'm not sure what crime we have committed."

Noor Khan Mehsud, who along with other tribesmen formed a volunteer committee to help displaced Mehsud families in Dera Ismail Khan, said local authorities have been slow to register the refugees.

"There is no government support," he said. "Officials have closed doors for us, and we are considered militants. Where should we go?"

Special correspondent Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Deadly Ambush in Tribal Region Could Indicate Looming Threat to Pakistan's Army

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 30, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 29 -- The Pakistani military is at war with the Taliban, but the ambush that killed 16 soldiers in the tribal region of North Waziristan on Sunday was still somewhat unexpected.

"There is no operation which was either planned or being conducted in North Waziristan," Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a Pakistani military spokesman, told reporters Monday. "This attack was completely unprovoked."

The Taliban assault on an army convoy passing through the village of Inzar Kas was one of the deadliest incidents for the military during its two-month-old offensive against the insurgents. But to some analysts, it also served as a warning of a bigger threat -- the possibility that disparate Taliban factions might be closing ranks to battle the army in Pakistan.

The group that has asserted responsibility for Sunday's ambush is led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, one of the many militant commanders in Pakistan and Afghanistan who fight -- sometimes against each other -- under the banner of the Taliban. In early 2008, Bahadur's group struck a peace deal with the local administration in North Waziristan, a mountainous tribal region along the Afghan border where the Pakistani government exerts little control. But a spokesman for his group announced Monday that because of U.S. drone bombings and Pakistani military activity, that peace has been shattered.

"We will carry out attacks on the security forces," Hamdullah Hamdi told reporters.

The failure of the accord in North Waziristan is a blow to the government as it plans a major operation in neighboring South Waziristan, home of Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan's main Taliban foe and the man blamed for multiple suicide bombings and the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The region to the north is important because military strategists expect to use it as a transit route for ground troops and supplies.

Bahadur's call to arms followed another announcement by a formerly pro-government Taliban commander in South Waziristan, Maulvi Nazir, who last week warned that his fighters intend to target the military in response to its offensive and the drone strikes.

"These two, Maulvi Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadur, they were focused on Afghanistan," said Mahmood Shah, a security analyst and retired Pakistani army brigadier with experience in the northwestern tribal areas. "What we've heard is they've called back their fighters from Afghanistan and are bringing them to Pakistan."

Earlier last week, the government suffered yet another setback to its efforts to turn other fighters against Mehsud, when Taliban commander Qari Zainuddin, an enemy of Mehsud's, was killed by one of his own security guards.

"It was too naive to think he could defeat Baitullah Mehsud," Shah said of Zainuddin.

The string of developments suggests that the government's new efforts to take on Mehsud in South Waziristan could prove more challenging than its recent push into the Swat Valley, where military officials say they have nearly regained the territory from the Taliban. For the past two weeks, aircraft have strafed Mehsud's territory in preparation for a ground assault against his thousands of followers.

"The militants' attacks on military convoys and installations in North Waziristan are part of a well-thought-out Taliban strategy to expand the war to other territories from South Waziristan, where the army is currently operating," said Talat Masood, a defense analyst and retired general. "We will see more such attacks in coming days."

Special correspondents Haq Nawaz Khan and Shaiq Hussain contributed to this report.

Pakistan Contends With History and Tribal Issues as Waziristan Campaign Looms

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 29, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 28 -- More than 70 years ago, the British army went to war against tribal forces loyal to a charismatic religious figure in what is now the Pakistani region of Waziristan. The ensuing guerrilla conflict lasted more than a decade. The British troops, though far more numerous and better armed, never captured the renegade leader and finally withdrew from the region.

Today, the Pakistani army is preparing to launch a major operation against another warrior in Waziristan, the ruthless Islamist commander Baitullah Mehsud. Taking a lesson from history and its own recent failures, the army is attempting to isolate and weaken Mehsud before sending its troops into battle.

Every day for the past two weeks, Pakistani bombers have crisscrossed Mehsud's territory, pounding his suspected hideouts and killing dozens of his fighters, including 16 who officials said died in bombing raids Saturday. Military forces have also surrounded the region to choke off Mehsud's access to weapons and fuel from outside.

"We are trying to shape the environment before we move in for the fight," Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the chief military spokesman, said in an interview. "We are also trying to minimize the loss of life. Ours is the only institution that can stand up to the militants, but public support is crucial. When we do move in, it must only be against Baitullah and his group. We cannot afford to provoke a tribal uprising."

So far, the effort has produced mixed results. On Tuesday, a Mehsud loyalist assassinated a key pro-government tribal leader in South Waziristan, and U.S. drone strikes killed 46 people at the funeral of a slain Mehsud commander, muddying the waters of tribal loyalties and antipathies.

"It is now clear that any tribals who side with the army will be violently suppressed," said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of defense studies at Quaid-i-Azam University here. "They may tacitly support the state, but they will not dare actively support it." He also noted that many army officers are from the same ethnic Pashtun group as Mehsud, making them reluctant to take him on.

As the days pass without the launch of a full-scale operation, experts said Mehsud -- who army officials estimate commands about 10,000 tribal fighters -- has had the time to gather support from sympathizers in other areas of Pakistan and abroad.

Since April, the army has enjoyed unprecedented public backing for a series of anti-militant operations, because of a mixture of high-profile terrorist bombings and revelations of cruel excesses by Taliban forces in the northwestern Swat Valley. But lately, some Pakistani commentators have cast doubt on the wisdom of taking on Mehsud's fanatical hordes.

"The decision to launch a military operation in this highly sensitive border region is ill-conceived, ill-advised, ill-timed," Roedad Khan, a retired government official, wrote Friday in The News International newspaper. Khan recalled the 1930s operation in which 40,000 British and Indian forces failed to crush Mirza Ali Khan, known as the Fakir of Ipi, a religious and tribal leader in North Waziristan. The retired official warned that by attacking next-door South Waziristan, the army could open a "massive, self-inflicted wound."

Sources close to the armed forces said there were concerns that the military was being pushed into the new campaign by Pakistan and U.S. officials too soon after taking on thousands of Taliban fighters in Swat. The operation there sent more than 2 million people fleeing and used up military resources.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivity, said there was also concern in the military that the continuing U.S. drone attacks were doing more harm than good, killing a few important militant figures but stoking anti-American sentiment throughout the tribal region.

"The drone attacks have a short-term positive impact, but their long-term effect is to create public hostility," one military source said. "People see them as a breach of sovereignty and think the state is leaving its own citizens at their mercy."

Abbas said he could not comment on the drone issue, and he would not say how soon the ground operation in Waziristan would begin. However, he said that although the army was prepared to go after Mehsud and the fighters, "we are dealing with a lot of complexities and constraints. We can only go so far without hurting our long-term interests."

Abbas acknowledged that the government had decided to withdraw the army from South Waziristan in January after a brief effort to attack Mehsud, but he said the military was in a far better political position today to go after the militants, because it enjoys strong public support while Mehsud, once seen as a Robin Hood figure by many Pakistanis, has become a ruthless criminal in the public's eye.

Abbas also took issue with observers who suggest that South Waziristan is going to be a far tougher fight than Swat. He said Swat was an "ideal territory for guerrilla fighters" because it is mountainous, forested and heavily populated. In contrast, he said, South Waziristan is barren and sparsely populated, with few places for insurgents to hide.

Still, Abbas said that even if Mehsud is captured or killed and his movement crushed, the problems that spawned it will not vanish overnight. "The tribal areas have been neglected for 50 years," the spokesman said. "We will do our part, but there has to be follow-up by the civilian administration, better governance, more development. This is going to be a long haul."