Now Islamabad strikes back
By Amir Mir
ISLAMABAD - The United States has been pressing Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks to do more in the fight against terrorism. But a decade after the launch of the US-led "war on terror", Pakistan has finally thrown the same phrase back at the US, urging international forces to capture Taliban militants who are attacking Pakistan from inside Afghanistan.
Pakistan's military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said on October 17 that Afghan and the US-led forces had failed to hunt down Maulvi Fazlullah, a Taliban cleric responsible for a spate of cross-border raids despite repeated requests by Pakistani military and political leadership.
On Thursday, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped on to Pakistan soil after reiterating earlier in Kabul, in unusually blunt language, that the Pakistani government, military and intelligence services must "take the lead" in fighting Pakistan-based insurgents but also in encouraging Afghan militants to reconcile. In two days of talks with Pakistan's military and civilian leaders in Islamabad, Clinton was expected to deliver the message that Pakistan must be part of the solution to the Afghan conflict.
Major-General Athar Abbas, in an October 17 interview with Reuters pinpointed al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked Mullah Fazlullah - aka Mullah Radio, for his fiery radio broadcasts - as being one of the most wanted militant commanders operating from Afghanistan and responsible for the series of cross border ambushes conducted from eastern Afghanistan that have killed dozens of Pakistani soldiers in the Dir and Chitral districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
''The attacks in which Taliban militants loyal to Maulvi Fazlullah took part have killed about 100 members of Pakistan's security forces. We have given locations and information about these groups to the Afghanistan government and the International Security Assistance Force [ISAF]. But apparently there has been no action taken against them because the problem refuses to go away'', said Athar Abbas.
Maulvi Fazlullah, in his latest interview with Reuters on October 20, vowed to return to Pakistan to wage war in his former stronghold Swat Valley, and said he doubted the government was sincere about peace talks with militants. ''We sacrificed our lives, left our homes and villages for the sake of Shariah (Islamic Law) and will do whatever we can to get Shariah implemented in the Malakand region [of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa Province] and rest of Pakistan.''
Army troops and the Frontier Corps personnel had been deployed in areas bordering Afghanistan to stop militant attacks from across the border, Pakistan's military spokesman told Radio Pakistan earlier in the week, adding there appeared to be no Afghan army or ISAF presence in the vast area from where the Taliban militants were operating against Pakistan. Most of the cross border attacks were carried out by Taliban militants who have safe havens in Kunar, Nooristan and Nangarhar areas of Afghanistan. ''The issue has been taken up with Afghan army personnel and ISAF, but no effective operation has been seen in these areas,'' the spokesman said.
Nevertheless, many in the diplomatic circles of Islamabad view the military spokesman's statement as a tit-for-tat move to counter the growing American pressure on Islamabad to take on the Haqqani network, reportedly based in the North Wazirstan region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan.
The statement has drawn a parallel between the refusal of the Pakistani military leadership to fight the Haqqani network and the US-led forces' reluctance to act against Mullah Fazlullah. Just as the Haqqani network is using Pakistani territory as a base to launch cross-border attacks in Afghanistan, Fazlullah is using Afghan terrain to target the Pakistani security forces.
Beyond the point-scoring, however, it remains an undeniable fact that Mullah Fazlullah and his militants have managed to regroup in Nuristan to become as dangerous as ever. Fazlullah was the commander of Pakistani Taliban in the picturesque Swat Valley, also described as the Switzerland of Pakistan. Swat, located just 160 kilometers from Islamabad, the federal capital, became a focal point of Pakistan's war against terror in 2009, with the army launching a massive military action, titled ''Operation Black Thunderstorm'', forcing Fazlullah and his private army to flee. Fazlullah regrouped in Afghanistan and established strongholds in Nuristan and Kunar, posing a threat to Pakistan once again.
According Major-General Abbas, Mullah Fazlullah is a prime example of the classic problem faced by Pakistan's military. ''Militant leaders can simply melt away in the mountainous frontier area in the face of army offensives. When they ran away from Swat, the Fazlullah group was in tatters and was scattered. But as they got time and support in Afghanistan, Fazlullah and his group are trying to re-enter the Swat Valley through Dir'', Abbas said, referring to a border region which was relatively stable before Fazlullah's men recently staged attacks on Pakistani security forces. ''Besides carrying out bombings, Fazlullah is believed to be responsible for a spate of kidnappings in FATA. Given how dangerous his presence is, it is entirely appropriate that Pakistan has asked the Allied Forces in Afghanistan to tackle him on urgent basis'', the military spokesman added.
Abbas's statement, however, belies repeated claims by the Pakistani military and political elite, including the army chief and the prime minister, that Taliban militants in Swat had been defeated in the military operation there in 2009. It was back in July of that year that Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani claimed the Pakistani security forces had achieved their main objective in Swat by recapturing its administrative seat of Mingora, which had been seized by the militants belonging to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), led by Mullah Fazlullah.
The military victory in Swat was crucial from the point of view of a larger front which al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants had been trying to create in Swat. Apprehensions expressed by independent analysts after the operation was concluded that the senior leadership of the Swat chapter of the TNSM and the TTP could retaliate to stage a comeback because it remains intact, have proven logical. In fact, the three previous military operations by the Pakistan Army (Operation Rah-e-Haq I, Rah-e-Haq II and Rah-e-Haq III in October 2007, July 2008 and January 2009 respectively) had also failed to contain the militants.
It was on November 17, 2009 that Mullah Fazlullah surfaced in Afghanistan and threatened to re-ignite insurgency in the Swat Valley. ''I have reached Afghanistan safely'', he told a BBC Urdu's correspondent by phone, adding, ''We are soon going to launch full-fledged punitive raids against the Pakistan Army in Swat.'' Fazlullah became a house hold name in Swat due to the fierce resistance his privately raised army gave the Pakistan army when it launched the military operation in the valley on October 22, 2007 to rout the TNSM/TTP militants and dismantle their jihadi infrastructure.
Even at that time, the Pakistani authorities believed Fazlullah had well-established links with Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives. It was on July 13, 2007, just two days after the military operation against the fanatic clerics of Lal Masjid in Islamabad came to an end, that then president General Pervez Musharraf approved a plan for immediate deployment of the paramilitary forces in Swat to crush the growing militancy. More than 3,000 Pakistani troops were sent to Swat in October 2007 to confront Taliban forces that were amassing in the district in a bid to impose Shariah law in the valley. The Pakistani troops were deployed to the hill-tops of the rugged terrain.
Now Islamabad strikes back
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