For the past one week plus, Pakistan has been carrying out night-time air raids in the North Waziristan agency and nearby tribal areas along the Durand Line with Afghanistan. Nearly 100 people have been killed. It also triggered fears of a full-scale military operation, and resulted in a mass exodus.
Fighter jets and helicopter gunships have pounded several areas of the tribal region four times since February 20. The death toll is between 60 and 100, and according to the army officials, all these people were either local militants or foreign militants who were aligned with the TTP. From it is clear that the offensive is targeted at the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) amongst others. Known mostly as Pakistan Taliban, TTP has invited the ire of the Americans with its cross border forays.
Put simply, the assault on North Waziristan is more an attempt at pleasing the United States, which has been demanding such an action for a long while.
The military offensive can be deemed as Islamabad- Rawalpindi way of repaying the “I owe You” for the IMF bail out package that Washington had facilitated to rescue the beleaguered Pakistani economy.
Ideally, the US will like to see some progress in the talks with the “Good Taliban” in order to put in place some structures that would survive in Kabul long after the international forces withdraw from Afghanistan.
As of now there is no way for this wish to be fulfilled as long President Karzai is not kept in the loop but this is a course of action that has few takers in Rawalpindi which has a Haqqani fixation. At least at the moment, the Haqqani Network is an anathema to the Americans. So there is very little prospect of Qatar logjam ending soon.
The fact of the matter is that North Waziristan has become the safe haven of the so-called non-state actors – both good and bad. TTP is not a single entity as it appears to be. It is a conglomeration of various militant groups bound by the common thread of Islamist fanaticism and strong commitment to usher in the new Caliphate.
These groups enjoy a modicum of independence though through the TTP they are all bound in their allegiance to the Original Taliban and its chief Mullah Omar, who is heading the Quetta Shura since the fall of Kabul to the US-led NATO forces.
The Punjab component of the Taliban, also known as Punjab Taliban, has a Kashmir fixation, and therefore is a part of so called “Good Taliban”.
Other Taliban elements are known to carry out cross border attacks from their safe hideouts in NW. The Haqqani Network, which is also securely positioned in NW, has a limited charter – Indian and American targets in Afghanistan.
The aerial strikes are a clear give away that Prime Minister Sharif has yielded his ground to the hawks in the Rawalpindi Shura. Already the establishment which is a euphemism for the army, has put out its message that there could be no further talks unless the TTP declared an unconditional ceasefire.
One reason for the hardening of GHQ stand is the TTP announcement that it had killed 23 soldiers it had been holding hostage for a long while. The killing attributed to a hard-line militant group within the TTP umbrella came as a surprise to public since the army had never spoke about any such hostage issue.
The Taliban- Government talks started on February 6. The government has pulled out on Feb 17; any expectation of resumption of the stalled dialogue is therefore a misplaced optimism. More so since the TTP has rejected the demand for an “unconditional ceasefire” in order to resume negotiations.
“Why should we”, TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid has questioned. “It is the government which has waged a war against us and it is for the government to end it now,” he told the Dawn. He dismissed the so-called scaling down of US drone attacks, saying: “Now we are being hunted through ground drones.”
Shahid also accused the intelligence agencies of targeted assassinations, pointing to the killing of Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani, who had stepped in to temporarily fill the vacancy caused by the death of Hakimullah Mehsud in a US drone attack last October. Bhittani was also known to favour negotiations with the government.
The Pakistani military publicly supported the “peace talks” but media reports indicated that it pushed the Sharif government to approve an offensive.
Sharif’s relations with the powerful military remain tense—his previous term in office ended in the 1999 military coup.
In any case, despite its claims to seek a negotiated settlement, Sharif’s government continues to declare that it fully backs the US “war on terrorism”.
This assertion inter alia means war against the Taliban, which is controlled by Quetta Shura.
A game of deception? Well, it is as always with practiced ease for Islamabad – Rawalpindi combine.
On its part, the Obama administration has publicly distanced itself from Sharif’s “peace talks” initiative, saying it was an “internal matter” for Pakistan.
The question is will the government opt for full scale ops? A Reuters report on Feb 26 leaves no room for doubts what so ever.
“If the negotiations … do not follow the trajectory that has been planned … there will be operations not only in North Waziristan but wherever necessary,” the dispatch quoted a senior government functionary as saying.
The official, who remained unidentified, also spoke of plans to target the Haqqani Network in coordinated attacks with the US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.
This bit of “revelation” invites scepticism; it is possible it was primarily intended to sooth the nerves of Washington which is becoming increasingly paranoid vis-à-vis Haqqani Network.
This line of reasoning finds justification from a Washington Post report.
A senior Pakistani official said 150,000 troops were already in the tribal region “to begin full-fledged clearing operation” and that the plans had been shared with the Pentagon, according to the Post, which has also noted that CIA Director John Brennan secretly travelled to Islamabad on Feb 21 to meet Pak army chief General Raheel Sharif and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) head Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam.
Well, the Brennan visit could not be a routine affair as The Post said quoting Pakistani officials. A few days back, General Lloyd J. Austin, head of the US Central Command, met with General Sharif at the GHQ. Pakistani Defence Secretary Asif Yasin Malik led a high level delegation to Washington last week.
All these discussions lend credence to the theory that Pakistan is key to President Obama’s plans for post-withdrawal Kabul.
Nothing more, nothing less.
– malladi rama rao
