Taliban go from hero to zero in Pakistan
Jul 19, 2009 04:30 AM
Haroon Siddiqui
The news from Afghanistan is depressing and will remain so for months. But the news from neighbouring Pakistan, which has had an adverse impact on NATO's Afghan mission, is encouraging.
The Pakistan army says it has killed 1,700 Pakistani Taliban and recaptured the Swat valley north of Islamabad, and that the 2 million displaced civilians may return.
But the more significant development is the decisive shift in Pakistani public opinion against the Taliban and associates. They are no longer seen as waging a worthy anti-American jihad.
There is widespread revulsion against their gruesome tactics suicide bombings, blowing up girls' schools, decapitating tribal leaders and imposing "Islamic" strictures on the population.
"This is not Islam, for God's sake," declared Musarrat Zaid, who runs a war widows' centre in the Swat valley. "These people don't know the meaning of Islam."
Another critic was Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi, a theologian in Lahore. He had issued a fatwa against suicide bombings, called the Taliban "a stigma on Islam" and supported the offensive in Swat. He was blown up by a suicide bomber in his mosque fuelling further public fury.
Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the influential Jamaat-e-Islami party, a long-time Afghan Taliban supporter, turned against the Pakistani Taliban. He characterized them as Islamic illiterates, led by ill-educated village clerics.
"This is the first time in years that mainstream religious figures and parties have turned against the militants," says Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Centre of the Atlantic Council, a think-tank in Washington, D.C. "This is a major breakthrough," he told me. "This offers a glimmer of hope."
Only a glimmer.
All that the army has done is to retake the populated areas. It had been stung by public anger that it had created an existential threat by ceding too much to the militants, signing 14 peace deals in three years, only to see each broken.
Retaking Swat does not mean that all the Taliban are gone. Many may simply have been driven back north into the mountains. Also lost in the body count is the fact that no Taliban leader has been captured.
There is not enough police or civilian backup to hold and administer the territory well enough to inspire the refugees to return and stay. Hence Washington's offer of $300 million of the $543 million called for by the United Nations for refugee settlement. Hence the proposal before Congress of $7.5 billion over five years for economic development and jobs for the young.
In the 440 words that you've just read, there was no mention of the North-West Frontier Province, Federally Administered Areas (FATA) or South Waziristan and North Waziristan. Those are the mountainous, semi-autonomous tribal areas along the Afghan border, home to the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban as well as Al Qaeda, perhaps even Osama bin Laden.
The Pakistan army says it's headed next to South Waziristan, home to Baitullah Meshud, the alleged mastermind of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and a series of suicide bombings in urban centres.
That's not likely, says Nawaz.
"You don't announce two weeks in advance that you are coming."
The army does not have the resources. With 50,000 troops in Swat and another 100,000 spread over the tribal region, it's stretched. Expect only limited forays to back up U.S. drone attacks on Meshud's suspected positions.
Expect even less in North Waziristan, another wild and remote area along the most porous part of the border, where the Afghan Taliban go back and forth.
Pakistan has reportedly got four major Afghan factions from there to agree to come to the negotiating table. If so, Barack Obama would be keen to explore the possibility as part of his exit strategy.
To sum up: Pakistan is not being overrun by militants. It has some on the run, with strong public backing. The U.S. is, at last, showing an understanding of the complexities involved. Both are working together better than before.
That's a good start for Pakistan and Afghanistan.
, may be i am wrong, but S-2 mentioned american SF, and as per my information, US SF have a unified command, even rangers come under american SF command, meaning rangers are SF too. 
