Pakistan�s anti-Taliban offensive

For two years the Pakistani establishment dithered while their country imploded all around them; literally ‘Nero fiddling while Rome burnt’. The Taliban had virtually held the nation to ransom since 2007 with a spate of bombing attacks, the assassination of a former Prime Minister and a virtual take-over of the tribal areas. Half-hearted actions by the army led to a series of defeats (including the surrender of an entire Frontier Corps Battalion in South Waziristan) which forced it to accept a string of embarrassing peace deals – none of which would have been accepted by any government of authority. Pakistan became the “Most Dangerous Place in the World” as bombing attacks and terrorist strikes targeted the cities and interiors with impunity – still the Pakistani establishment refused to act.

The Taliban entry into the Swat valley and the ‘settled areas’ in February 2009 was a turning point. Another embarrassing peace deal was brokered in which the Taliban agreed to lay down arms provided the government imposed Shariat or Islamic law in the entire Malakand division. Not that the deal mattered much. By then the Taliban had already imposed their brand of militant Islam throughout the valley. Over 70,000 Swatis fled from the beautiful, once peaceful valley as the government machinery proved incapable or unwilling to take any action. Emboldened by their victory the Taliban began moving further eastward towards the Dir and Buner districts, just 120 km from Islamabad. The proximity of the threat, just a grenade’s throw away from Islamabad; coupled with US pressure eventually galvanised the Pakistani establishment into action.

Operations in the Swat Valley

Military action in the Swat Valley – codenamed Operation Rah-e-Rast (the Right Path) commenced in end April 2009 with over three divisions, including 7000 troops recently re-deployed from the Indian border. Preceded by heavy artillery and aerial fire, Pakistani troops closed onto Taliban strongholds in the major towns of the valley. Daggar, the main town of Buner district was retaken by a well-coordinated assault by helicopter-borne troops and Buner was got under government control in a week. Actions now shifted towards Mingora, the capital and main township of Swat, and its adjoining villages. The important outposts of Banai Baba Zairat, Malam Jabba (which boasted of Pakistan’s only ski lift till the Taliban destroyed it) and Peochar, the stronghold of the local Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah were first retaken. Mingora was cordoned and subjected to heavy shelling for a week before troops physically entered it on 23 May. However, by then most of the hard-core cadres and virtually the entire senior leadership slipped away leaving behind around 2000 Taliban dead in their first serious clash of arms with the Pakistan army.

The Taliban responded in signature style. A wave of bombing attacks rocked Pakistan, many of them targeted at religious places and government establishments. Yet this time most of the population and the media, including the vernacular press have roundly supported the military actions. The fact that the Taliban was the real enemy was gradually becoming apparent. Even President Zardari was forced to admit in a BBC interview that “Pakistan’s mortal threat comes internally and not from India. It is a battle for the very soul of Pakistan and our very survival. We simply cannot afford to lose it.”

Operation Rah-e-Nijat

With operations in the Swat Valley successfully completed, focus shifted towards Waziristan the fountain head of terrorism.  A major success was achieved on 5 August 2009 when US drones targeted and killed Baitullah Mehsud, the head of Tehrik-e-Taliban in his remote village of Zangarha in South Waziristan. Under US pressure, actions began in Waziristan and Op Rah-e-Nijat was launched. The Taliban strongholds of Kotkoi, Spankai, Raghzi and Sararogha have now been retaken – or rather troops have entered these towns only to find no enemy. Three weeks of intensive bombings and the deployment of approximately 30,000 troops have produced no result.  The tactics of bombing a target before sending in troops simply forewarned the Taliban and allowed them to slip away to fight another day.

The actions have produced a vicious fall-out.  Suicide attacks have increased eight times; Peshawar itself has seen nineteen blasts in the past three months since Op Rah-e-Nijat began, including one which demolished the ISI headquarters on the picturesque Khyber Road (through which they once funneled the same Taliban cadres into Afghanistan). Such bombing will continue in the hinterland while the army will have its task cut-out against a faceless enemy, inhospitable terrain, bellicose tribesmen and a bleak, bone-chilling winter in the rugged mountains of Waziristan.

It will take another year at least to achieve even a modicum of success. No action will be possible in winter and the Taliban will use this period for a renewed wave of bombing attacks to weaken Pakistani resolve. And even if the Pakistan army coupled with action from coalition troops operating on the Western side of the Durand Line do get the Taliban under control by the end of next year or so; then what?

Obama has virtually set a deadline of 18 months to a year before the US withdraws from the region and Pakistan and there are many in Pakistan who are waiting for the day. Pakistan is unlikely to abandon the Taliban, whom many still consider as a strategic asset. It is no surprise that immediately after the announcement of President’s Obama’s new strategy Pakistan gradually toned down the pace and announced a halt to operations in Waziristan. Their game-plan now seems clear. After degrading the Tehrik-e Taliban and Al-Queda cadres, they hope to engineer a peace-deal with favourably disposed leaders like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or Jallaluddin Haqqani. Talks with the ‘Good Taliban’ which the US now propagates has spurred the Pakistan establishment into propping up its own militant cadres to retain their influence in Afghanistan and keep alive their long-term aim of strategic depth. Of course, the additional spin-off is that the same cadres can then be funneled into Kashmir to further the cycle of violence there.

Pakistan’s anti-Taliban offensive has died down after progressing in fits and starts. It is in their own interest to resume operations with renewed intensity, finish off the hydra and not keep some of its tentacles alive for their own ends. Else the hydra will spawn itself again – perhaps in another form and regenerate the same mayhem in the region that it is spewing now.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).