1773c3ac18868210VgnVCM100000e56411acRCRDapproved/thenational/Articles/Migration/2009-Q3A dangerous but vital task in Waziristan0773c3ac18868210VgnVCM100000e56411ac____As US forces scale back aerial attacks in Afghanistan in an effort to reduce civilian casualties, what is happening over the border in Pakistan?<p>As US forces scale back aerial attacks in Afghanistan in an effort to reduce civilian casualties, what is happening over the border in Pakistan? A co-ordinated offensive bombs funerals and takes the fight into Waziristan led by helicopter gunships. It makes some difference that the ground forces are not American, but for the Pashtun tribes any interlopers in the Federal Administered Tribal Areas are effectively foreigners. Islamabad risks yet more civilian casualties, further alienating the tribes and getting bogged down in an unwinnable war in treacherous terrain.</p> <p>But the offensive is as necessary as it is dangerous. There are signs that President Asif Ali Zardari and, more importantly, the army have learnt the lessons of successive failures to pacify the tribes. First, the goal of this offensive is not pacification. The central government has made it as clear as it possibly can that the target is limited to one man: Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the loose-knit Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. The army has gone so far as to assure some of Mehsud's closest allies, equally intractable enemies of the state, that they are not being targeted.</p> <p>This focus on one man is in large part symbolic, but symbolism is important. Mr Zardari's administration, beset by a host of internal threats, simply cannot maintain credibility if it fails to go after the man accused of murdering the former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. Mehsud is also the strongest of the Pakistan Taliban commanders with the largest force fighting in Afghanistan. More importantly to Islamabad, what further distinguishes Mehsud from other hardline groups in Pakistan opposed to India or the US is that he has brought the fight to the state with terrorist attacks in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.</p> <p>Diplomacy will be part of the eventual solution, but the series of treaties with Taliban-related groups since the elections has emasculated the government in exchange for false promises. The deal signed with militants in the Swat Valley ended in their push towards Islamabad and the army having to retake territory it should never have conceded. While Mr Zardari is vulnerable to charges that he is acting at the behest of the US, a deeply unpopular move inside Pakistan, the militants overplayed their hand in Swat and have given the president a window of opportunity in public opinion.</p> <p>Waziristan is not Swat, however. Federal incursions into the tribal areas cannot be taken lightly, and a permanent troop presence would spark a hundred tribal insurgencies that would have very little to do with Mehsud or the Taliban. For the time being Mr Zardari will have to try to live with non-state armies inside Pakistan; the long-term solution will be to undermine the hardline groups where they are weakest, co-opting the tribal leaders one at a time and offering economic development.</p> <p>That work cannot even begin if the central government is not a credible force. There are valid grounds to doubt whether the army can find and defeat Mehsud in the hostile terrain of South Waziristan. As other Taliban leaders formally cancelled a 16-month ceasefire in the region's north yesterday, efforts to isolate Mehsud seemed to be failing. Perhaps what is needed is a bit of luck - the US drone strike on his lieutenant's funeral may have missed him by only hours. Regardless, there is more to be lost from inaction than failure. If Mehsud is allowed to wage an open insurgency with impunity, there is very little left to protect anyway.</p> 84NNOPINION2009070100000020090701000000100ARhttp://adedit.ad.atl.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090701/OPINION/706309890670630989020090701100000000