Why Pakistan will not mount new attacks on militants
Jan 22, 2010 News & Events, Pakistan, pakistan politics
With its announcement that it will launch no new offensives against the Taliban in 2010, Pakistan’s army appears to have opened a new innings in its favourite game with the West, says the BBC’s Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad.
For the United States, the statement by the Pakistan army could not have come at a worse time.
Its main intelligence agency, the CIA, is still coming to terms with the death of seven personnel in a suicide attack in Afghanistan by an al-Qaeda “double agent”.
That attack, the worst suffered by the agency in four decades, was apparently planned and carried out by Taliban militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Under pressure from the US, the Pakistan army launched an operation there in the main Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan in November 2009.
The army has since been able to secure that territory and push out the militants.
While some have been captured, most senior Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders have fled the region.
Intelligence officials say they have now taken refuge either in other nearby tribal regions or the neighbouring Balochistan province.
Mission impossible
Top US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have been calling for the military to go after the militants in these regions.
All this comes at a time when Pakistan’s government is already under a great deal of domestic criticism.
This is mainly due to increased missile strikes by the US targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders in the tribal areas.
These have turned a sometimes ambivalent tribal population against the Pakistan military.
Analysts say the tribesmen see the strikes, which have claimed more lives of civilians than of militants, as contiguous with the military operation.
But US officials have continued to press for more action, painting doomsday scenarios for Pakistan.
The latest such warning comes from US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who said in India that al-Qaeda was planning to carry out attacks to provoke war with Pakistan.
But the Pakistan military appears to have its own views on the subject, and their say is likely to count the most.
Tags: Al qaida, Black Water, cia, Millitants, Pak Army, Pakistan, Raw, war on terror, Waziristan
Secret US raids into Pakistan disclosed
Dec 22, 2009 News & Events, Pakistan
PRESSTV
Tue, 22 Dec 2009
A former NATO officer reveals clandestine US incursions into Pakistan as part of a secret war in the northwestern tribal region regularly hit by CIA drone attacks.
American special forces conducted multiple illegal raids into Pakistan’s tribal areas, which were never declared to the Pakistani government, the unnamed officer told the Guardian.
The incursions, only one of which has been previously reported, occurred between 2003 and 2008, involving helicopter-borne elite soldiers crossing the border in the night.
“The Pakistanis were kept entirely in the dark about it. It was one of those things we wouldn’t confirm officially with them,” he said.
The revelation comes amid growing anger in Pakistan against the CIA-led drone program that, according to local media, has killed many civilians in the lawless tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan, due to see an additional infiltration of 30,000 American soldiers shortly.
The US publicly acknowledged only one of the raids by its special forces in September 2008, prompting strong condemnation from Pakistan’s foreign office, which described it as “a grave provocation.” The military also threatened retaliatory action.
But the ex-NATO officer said that was the fourth raid of previous years, adding one of them was to rescue a crashed Predator drone because they did not trust Pakistani forces.
Washington has recently sent several senior officials to Islamabad to ask Pakistani officials for action against alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants in North Waziristan, and an expansion of CIA drone strikes into the western province of Balochistan.
But Pakistan’s intelligence officials reject such requests and accuse the US of “scapegoating” Pakistan for its own failures in Afghanistan.
Tags: afghanistan, Balochistan, Black Water, cia, drone attacks, drone strike, Pakistan, Peshawar, US, USA, war on terror, Waziristan, XE
‘We are prepared for a long war’
Nov 4, 2009 News & Events, Pakistan, pakistan politics
PESHAWAR: A Taliban spokesman denied Tuesday that Pakistan army has won a series of battlefield victories in its offensive in tribal South Waziristan, saying the militants are drawing government soldiers into a trap.
‘We are prepared for a long war,’ Azam Tariq told an Associated Press reporter by telephone.
‘The areas we are withdrawing from, and the ones the army is claiming to have won, are being vacated by us as part of a strategy. The strategy is to let the army get in a trap, and then fight a long war.’
Tariq also denied army claims that hundreds of militants have been killed, saying only 11 have died so far.
In mid-October, the Pakistani government launched an offensive in the South Waziristan tribal region, viewed as the main stronghold in the country of both the Taliban and al-Qaida.
The military says it has pressed deep into Taliban territory and captured some Taliban strongholds. The offensive has drawn retaliatory militant attacks across Pakistan.
A few hours after Tariq’s claim, the army announced that 21 militants had been killed in the past 24 hours in South Waziristan and that government forces were continuing to press into Taliban territory. It said in a statement that one government soldier had died in the past day.
Much of the fighting was in Sararogha, a Taliban base where militant leaders have long operated openly, occasionally even using it for news conferences. The army said it killed 16 fighters there as it tried to clear the town of militants.
What is actually happening, though, is impossible to confirm.
Pakistan has effectively sealed off the tribal areas, semiautonomous regions where the central government in Islamabad has long had only minimal authority. —AP
Tags: Al qaida, Azam Tariq, Pak Army, Pakistan, Sararogha, South Waziristan, Swat, taliban, war on terror, Waziristan
Peshawar’s Meena bazaar Car Bomb Blast in Pictures
Oct 28, 2009 Uncategorized
PESHAWAR: A car bomb tore through a packed market in Peshawar on Wednesday, killing 95 people and trapping casualties under pulverised shops, in one of Pakistan’s deadliest attacks.
Tags: Army Operation, blast in Peshawar, Blast Peshawar, Car Bomb Blast, Meena bazaar, North Waziristan, Peshawar blast, Peshawar's Meena bazaar, pictures, taliban, war on terror, Waziristan
Leaving Waziristan
Oct 24, 2009 News & Events, Pakistan
Recent attacks in Pakistan, claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, have been followed by a major military operation by the army in South Waziristan.
Now into its sixth day, heavy fighting continues around Kotkai, the hometown of Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban.
Alan Fisher, in an exclusive report, shows the waves of people being forced to leave their homes near the border between North and South Waziristan as a result of the fighting.
Tags: Pakistan, taliban, Tehrik ke Taliban, TTP, war on terror, Waziristan, waziristan operation
The human cost
Oct 22, 2009 News & Events, Pakistan
By Anna Husarska
There has been such expectation and speculation over Pakistan’s latest anti-Taliban campaign in South Waziristan that the start of major operations has the feel of something long overdue. Comment and reports by local and international media have focused on troop strength, tactics, and body counts.
But those of us who have been working in humanitarian aid in the region recall the human and specifically civilian cost of similar operations in Pakistan’s north-western tribal areas exactly one year ago. Last month I met internally displaced persons from Bajaur and Mohmand tribal agencies (i.e. areas) still stuck in camps outside Peshawar. Those campaigns went largely unannounced and without remark and their real cost is difficult to estimate, as few if any humanitarian agencies have access to the tribal lands along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. But destruction was widespread, most people lost everything — their homes, their belongings, sometimes even their loved ones — and instability still reigns.
Even in the Swat Valley and Malakand Division, where the counterinsurgency campaign has been acclaimed and the rapid displacement and return of millions deemed “successful,” ground truth is hard to come by. North of Mingora, Swat’s main city, the valley remains unquiet. Humanitarian organizations find access difficult; unpredictable daily changes in curfews and checkpoints, and continuing actions against militants, can cut off aid access and mean many Swatis simply can’t get on with rebuilding their lives. While many went home voluntarily, others were coerced into returning from camps too early — and some have fled a second or even third time. So, as the armed forces’ long-anticipated offensive in South Waziristan advances, and hundreds of thousands flee, we who work side by side with Pakistani aid organizations in helping those driven from their homes by conflict are asking that the government and Pakistan’s international supporters pay equally fierce attention to the human cost.
Right now, the government and army are denying access in the main districts hosting displaced families to international humanitarian organizations with the biggest capacity to deliver life-saving assistance. Local government and local aid groups are struggling with the sheer weight of human necessities — they need international humanitarian support. In the end, this conflict will be best judged not on the number of Taliban killed but the number of civilians protected. This does sound very much like the new American counterinsurgency doctrine, doesn’t it?
Tags: afghanistan, anti-Taliban, Pakistan, taliban, Terror, war on terrpr, Waziristan
Fund-raising campaign by Tehrik-i-Taliban
Oct 19, 2009 News & Events, Pakistan
KOHAT: Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan has started a fund-raising campaign in the Orakzai Agency and parts of the Kurram Agency and Hangu. Sources said the TTP men were asking tribesmen to donate generously because the conflict in South Waziristan was likely to be a long one.
‘They are demanding cash for weapons, food and medicines because it is going to be a long offensive,’ said a local.
According to him, many politicians, businessmen, drug barons and jewellers in Kohat, Hangu, Thall, Kurram Agency, Darra Adamkhel and Bannu have been making periodic payments to the Taliban.
‘So these donations are in addition to the money routinely and regularly extorted by the militants.’
Taliban reportedly collect Rs15 million every year as ‘jazia’ from the Sikh community in Orakzai Agency. They have also amassed huge sums through kidnapping for ransom.
They kidnapped a local trader, Fayyaz Paracha, from the Kohat-Hangu highway three days ago and demanded Rs10 million for his release.
A kidnapped man, released from a TTP hideout on the outskirts of Kohat after a military operation, told some time ago that their captives termed ransom ‘a kind of jihad’.
Tags: taliban, Tehrik-i-Taliban, war on terror, Waziristan
The battle for Waziristan: Operation Rah-i-Nijaat
Oct 18, 2009 News & Events, Pakistan
By Sayed Bokhari
Sunday, 18 Oct, 2009
Though military operations are launched unannounced to catch the enemy off guard, the case of Operation Rah-i-Nijaat has been altogether different.
While at the time of writing troop movement and reports emanating from Peshawar indicated that the operation had begun in South Waziristan, since June there have been regular indications that the army was ready to start hostilities against the Taliban in the area.
This strategy may have been initiated to give ample time to the civilian population of Waziristan to leave for safer places and convert the area into a battlefield where the security forces could unleash their arsenal without causing too much collateral damage.
In June NWFP Governor Owais Ghani announced that the government had finally decided to go all out against the (now dead) chief of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Baitullah Mehsud, and his cronies and that the army and other law-enforcement agencies were being given a free hand to take them on.
The decision was welcomed as the TTP had inflicted severe sufferings on innocent civilians, slaughtered men in uniform, assassinated religious scholars and bombed educational institutions and government infrastructure.
Figures vary, but it is estimated that Waziristan is home to more than 5,000 hardened militants besides some 2,000 Uzbek fighters. The total strength of the enemy in the area is said to be 10,000. The reported death of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) leader Tahir Yuldashev in a drone attack in South Waziristan in August was a big blow to the violent foreign militant group that was waging a fierce campaign against Pakistan and its state agencies. The death of Yuldashev has deprived the IMU of a leader credited with masterminding deadly attacks on military convoys and camps.
On the face of it at least, the prevailing conditions in Waziristan are favourable for Operation Rah-i-Nijaat. It is widely believed that the command structure of the TTP is in disarray. Its dreaded chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US missile strike in August. The success of Operation Rah-i-Raast in Swat has also bolstered the morale of troops and inspired confidence among the people.
Isolating Baitullah’s group from other militant organisations active in the area was an important strategic consideration and perhaps the government has managed to do that vis-à -vis the Maulvi Nazir group in the Wana area in South Waziristan and Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan. Past events reveal that some militants of the Nazir group were killed by pro-Baitullah fighters inside Mehsud territory, resulting in a bitter feud between the two groups. Hence winning over the Nazir group would not have been too difficult.
Another commander, Misbahuddin, leads the anti-Baitullah group. This group has assisted the law-enforcement agencies in pointing out militants belonging to the Baitullah group even in Islamabad and Karachi. All this is of course countered by what the military will be up against. There are two major forces which are likely to support the Baitullah group against the army — the Haqqani network, which is mostly active in Afghanistan fighting Nato forces, and the IMU.
To take care of this contingency, additional troops are said to have been deployed to occupy the strategic heights along the Mehsud territory’s border with North Waziristan besides the sealing of four access points in the battle zone from Razmak-Makeen, Wana-Ludda, Jandola-Sararogha and Kanigoram-Jandola. The Shawal mountains would thus be the only escape route available to the militants, but would effectively prove a dangerous one for them because of air and ground firepower.
In view of the operation that appears to have begun, the army placed two divisions consisting of 27,000 soldiers to take on an estimated 10,000 hard-core Taliban militants. The army has spent weeks cutting off militants’ escape routes and softening up targets in the region, using limited intelligence-led ground and air strikes.
It is believed that over the past three months the army has been drawing up plans, holding in-depth deliberations and carrying out critical analyses of past actions in the area. One issue that the army would have deliberated on is that of the peace accords drawn up in the past that only helped the militants gain respite from hostilities and a chance to reorganise. Another measure that has been taken to paralyse the militants in the area is the placement of an economic blockade since last June. This measure is said to have restricted supplies to the Taliban. It is hoped that it would further squeeze the fighting ability of the militants.
One of the fallouts of military operations is the plight of the internally displaced. In Waziristan it is estimated that tens of thousands of persons will be displaced due to the conflict. The IDPs would have to be given shelter and food in safer areas in Tank, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan. The experience of handling a large number of internal refugees from Malakand division during Rah-i-Raast should come in handy in the care of those displaced by the Waziristan operation.
Weather conditions could play a part in hampering free movement. In the Mehsud area snowfall commences at the end of November. Logistic support to troops would then be restricted. Such weather conditions could be advantageous to the militants, who have intimate knowledge of the terrain and unfrequented routes.
The battle for Waziristan has been characterised as the ‘mother of all battles’. The battle will take place over a formidable terrain covering 2,420 square kilometres. It will take a huge human toll. With the start of the operation the Taliban will try to ignite fires elsewhere in Pakistan as they already appear to be doing. More suicide attacks can be expected in large cities like Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi. The epicentre of the Taliban and the Uzbek militants lies in South Waziristan. Thus for these militants it is a battle for existence.
Tags: Operation Rah-i-Nijaat, Pak Army, Rah-i-Nijaat, taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban, Waziristan
Waziristan is next, says Zardari
May 18, 2009 Articles, pakistan politics
Dawn
Monday, 18 May, 2009
LONDON: Pakistan is to extend its war on the Taliban beyond Swat into the fiercely independent tribal areas bordering Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda leadership are believed to be hiding.
‘We’re going to go into Waziristan, all these regions, with army operations,’ President Asif Ali Zardari told The Sunday Times in an interview. ‘Swat is just the start. It’s a larger war to fight.’
He said Pakistan would need billions of pounds in military assistance and aid for up to 1.7 million refugees, the biggest movement of people since the country’s split from India in 1947.
To help take on the militants, the Pakistan army is for the first time to accept counter-insurgency training from British and American troops on its own soil.
‘We need to develop our capability and we need much more support,’ said Mr Zardari. ‘We need much, much more than the $1 billion (military aid) we’ve been getting, which is nothing. We’ve got 150,000 troops in (the tribal areas) — just the movement of that number would cost $1 billion.’
The army is planning to open new fronts in Waziristan and Darra Adamkhel. Waziristan is the headquarters of the militant Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, led by Baitullah Mehsud, who has been named as the mastermind behind the assassination of the former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.
Mr Zardari appealed for $1 billion in aid for refugees. ‘If we are to win the hearts and minds of these people we need to be able to relocate them back into civil society, rebuild their houses and give them interest-free loans to restart their businesses,’ he said.
‘If we don’t they will turn against the government and we will lose the impetus we’ve managed to create in the country against the Taliban.’
The Taliban were said to be holding out in Sultanwas, a mountainous valley in Buner. All access to Swat, where the army said a house-to-house search was under way for Taliban leaders in Mingora, was banned.
Mr Zardari insisted that the army was committed to defeating the Taliban. ‘I think the casualties speak for that, the displacement speaks for that,’ he said.
He claimed that officers sympathetic to the militants had been purged. ‘I’m confident the army perceives the Taliban as much of a national threat as we do.’
He added: ‘You cannot fight this war only on the battle (field). You also have to fight it on the economic front — you have to offer something to the youth.’
Tags: Pakistan, Swat, taliban, Waziristan, zardari
