The army won the battle, now Pakistan must win the war

Shaukat Qadir

• Last Updated: November 17. 2009 8:51PM UAE / November 17. 2009 4:51PM GMT

When the Pakistani army launched its assault on the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan in mid-October, most analysts (including me) expected the militants to offer considerable resistance. Instead, the campaign achieved its aim inside three weeks. But while credit must be given to the commitment of the ground and air forces, perhaps there is more to this swift and easy conquest than meets the eye.

If, as I have written before, the reason US forces vacated seven Afghan border posts next to South Waziristan on the eve of the operation was to allow Taliban reinforcements to enter before sealing the opening, it backfired; instead, the open rear door permitted many of the Taliban to escape into Afghanistan.

From Mullah Mohammed Omar to their current spokesman Abdul Mannan, the Afghan Taliban have repeatedly stated that they “are not enemies of Pakistan”, that they “will not fight the Pakistan army”, that they condemn “the barbarous and un-Islamic acts of the Pakistani Taliban who target innocent civilians with their suicide bombers”, and finally that they “will not support these Pakistani Taliban who are guilty of such acts”.

Until now these were only words. But during Pakistan’s South Waziristan operation the Afghan Taliban had the first opportunity to prove themselves, and it seems they have been true to those words.

It is now obvious that the Mehsud Taliban realised they were going to be fighting a losing battle and planned only a token resistance, permitting the bulk of their fighters to escape; 600 dead and half as many captured amounts to less than a half the casualties the Taliban suffered in Swat. Even Sararogha, their HQ, fell within 48 hours of being surrounded.

From the amount of arms, ammunition, explosives, communication equipment, training manuals and other material that has fallen into the hands of the Pakistan army, it is also obvious that even though the escape was planned it was not an orderly retreat in which they carried their equipment with them.

I gather that while a few have escaped into Punjab and Balochistan, the bulk of around 18,000 have escaped into Afghanistan. Denied the support of the Afghan Taliban, they are being given succour by al Qa’eda in the caves of Tora Bora, close to Pakistan’s Khyber Agency and not far from the Kurram Agency.

I would not be at all surprised if these Mehsuds, under Hakimullah and Wali ur Rahman, tried to re-enter through these two tribal agencies and find haven in the Orakzai Agency, the only one that does not share a border with Afghanistan and where they already have a strong foothold. It is more than likely that the Orakzai Agency will soon need another military operation.

If that proves necessary, while the absence of a border with Afghanistan might be counted as a disadvantage for the Taliban, the troubled Kurram Agency to the west and the Afridi tribe in Khyber Agency to the north offer some protection.

There is an important point to be made here: while the Taliban fighting the US-led forces in Afghanistan enjoy the support of most Pashtuns, those who turned against the state of Pakistan do not; which is why the anti-Pakistan Taliban rule through force alone. Most of the tribes are loyal to the Pakistani state. The reason the Taliban have a strong foothold in Orakzai is that they eliminated almost all the traditional elders in a suicide attack during a jirga (tribal council), and have since then consolidated their hold by publicly murdering all dissenters.

What is more, the Pakistani Taliban’s continuing attacks on soft targets in North West Frontier Province have further strengthened the resolve of the Pashtuns to exterminate them. Mohammed Talib, who lost his wife and three-year-old son in one of these attacks in Peshawar, is a Shinwari, one of the most peaceful of Pashtun tribes. Even as he shed tears for them and expressed his concern for the safety of others, he mustered the strength to convey in a fierce tone his conviction that: “Nonetheless, we have to kill them; these people are not human.” He voices the typical emotion of most Pashtuns.

While it is possible that the Mehsud chapter of the Taliban might return and find temporary succour in Orakzai, it is unlikely that they will ever be able to re-organise to the level they reached during Baitullah’s times; or ever again be able to pose the kind of threat, through imaginative and well planned attacks on sensitive targets, that they did before.

However, it is equally unlikely that suicide attacks on soft targets are going to end soon. The period of insecurity and uncertainty for the people of Pakistan is likely to last a while. It is to be hoped that Pakistan’s collective national will lasts the course. It might not, if the political government continues in its state of apathy and leaves it all to the military.

I repeat: in this war, the military can only win battles. The war will be won or lost by the political government and the people; and this is not a war Pakistan can afford to lose.



Brig Gen Shaukat Qadir is a retired Pakistani infantry officer