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Airstrikes in North Waziristan kill 15 suspected terrorists

By Dawn.com
Updated about 3 hours ago
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KARACHI: At least 15 suspected terrorists were killed when Army Aviation Combat helicopters carried out precision strikes in the Tabai area of North Waziristan Agency, said a statement from the Inter Services Public Relation (ISPR). These claims, however, could not be independently verified as journalists have limited access to the restive tribal agency.

Moreover, 10 explosive-laden vehicles and five militant hideouts were destroyed in the strikes, the statement added.

Military operation Zarb-i-Azb was launched by the Pakistan Army on June 15 following a brazen militant attack on Karachi's international airport and failure of peace talks between the government and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) negotiators.

The Taliban and their ethnic Uzbek allies both claimed responsibility for the attack on Karachi airport, which was seen as a strategic turning point in how Pakistan tackles the insurgency.

Nearly a million people have fled the offensive in North Waziristan, which is aimed at wiping out longstanding militant strongholds in the area, which borders Afghanistan.

North Waziristan has been isolated by deploying troops along its border with neighboring agencies and Federally Administrative Tribal Areas (Fata) regions to block any move of terrorists in and out of the Agency.

Isaf commander calls on Army Chief
General John Campbell Commander International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) called on Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif today at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, according to an ISPR press release.

This is his first visit to the GHQ after assuming command of the Isaf.

During the meeting, matters of mutual interest were discussed that included progress of the ongoing Zarb-i-Azb operation, latest situation in Afghanistan and coordination along the Pak-Afghan Border.

Gen John F. Campbell was nominated to lead American forces in Afghanistan on August 26, 2014. He took over from Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr.

Airstrikes in North Waziristan kill 15 suspected terrorists - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
 
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Anti-terror operations to continue, says army

By Baqir Sajjad Syed


ISLAMABAD: The army said on Monday that counter-terrorism operations would continue till elimination of terrorism.

“The capacity of the Taliban militants to plan and execute terrorist activity has been disrupted,” Military spokesman Maj Gen Asim Bajwa said while talking to Dawn.

The spokesman was discussing the progress achieved in Operation Zarb-i-Azb in North Waziristan and the intelligence-based operations carried out elsewhere in the country since the start of the operation on June 15.

He said the operation was “proceeding as per plan and desired targets were being achieved”. But he avoided quantifying the progress achieved.

The army claims to have cleared over 80 km of main road in North Waziristan and its three major population centres – Mirali, Miramshah and Dattakhel. But importantly the much feared blowback of the military operation in the once Taliban stronghold has been avoided. Except for a couple of attacks on military installations and a few other minor strikes, terrorists have not been able to carry out any major act of violence.

Gen Bajwa said the terrorists were on the run now and they were carrying out sporadic attacks.

“They have been dislodged from their base, their command and control centre and logistic base has been destroyed, and their communication network has been smashed,” he said.

Gen Bajwa avoided a direct comment on renunciation of violence by Punjabi Taliban led by Asmatullah Moavia, but there is a perception within the military that it was a result of the pressure generated by Zarb-i-Azb.

He regretted that Afghanistan was not extending commensurate cooperation.

“We have through military and diplomatic channels been asking Afghan authorities for cooperation, but they have not been forthcoming,” he said.

The military claims to have eliminated over 1,000 TTP soldiers, including the second tier of the militant leadership, but says the main leaders including the group’s chief Maulvi Fazlullah were based in Afghanistan.

The military spokesman specifically underscored the success of over 2,200 operations across the country that had been undertaken as part of the newly-instituted ‘Integrated Security Mechanism’.

“Forty-five terrorists have been killed and 134 hardcore militants have been apprehended in these operations that were intelligence led,” he said.

Asked about the groups and individuals targeted in these operations across the country, the spokesman said those having proven links with the Fata-based TTP were targeted.

Army chief Gen Raheel Sharif, while speaking on Defence Day in Mirali, said that the intelligence-based operations against terrorist outfits would continue.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2014
 
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Militancy

On September 15, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Jamatul Ahrar spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan posted a message on his Twitter account claiming responsibility for the attack on a police station in Hangu, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on the same day. Ansarul Mujahdeen had reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack earlier. On the topic of celebrating the International Day of Democracy, Ehsan advised all Muslims to shun democracy and support TTP Jamatul Ahrar in its efforts to replace democracy with Sharia in Pakistan. He also declared that the ongoing floods in the Punjab province were a result of Allah’s punishment for adopting democracy.[1]

According to a Long War Journal report published on September 16, jihadists on twitter confirmed that two al Qaeda operatives, Sufyan al Maghribi and Umar al Talib, were killed in airstrikes earlier this year. Maghribi was a Moroccan who served as the group’s military chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the journal report, he was likely killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan in March. Umer Talib alias Adil Salih Ahmad al Qumayshi, a propagandist who narrated videos for al Qaeda’s as Sahab Media Foundation, was reportedly killed in a U.S. airstrike in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region two months ago.[2]

In an interview with the BBC on September 15, Director General of the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major Gen. Asim Bajwa said that the ongoing Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan had significantly curtailed the TTP’s capacity to carry out coordinated terrorist attacks in Pakistan. However, he admitted that the TTP leadership, including its chief Mullah Fazlullah and Shura members, had managed to flee before the Operation and is now hiding in Kunar province of Afghanistan. In the interview, Major Gen. Bajwa also clarified that the army is not involved in politics and that it is a neutral actor in the current political standoff.[3]

According to the ISPR, militants from the Afghan side of the border attacked Dandi Kuch check-post in the Spinwam area of North Waziristan Agency on September 16, killing three Frontier Corps (FC) soldiers. Repulsing the attack, Pakistani troops killed 11 insurgents and arrested one.[4]

On September 16, Pakistani fighter jets killed at least 20 militants and destroyed five hideouts in Tor Dara, Tirah, Jatoi, and Rajgal areas of Khyber Agency.[5]

On September 15, unidentified gunmen killed Zahir Shah, a schoolteacher and member of an anti-Taliban militia, in Kabal sub-district of Swat. The police arrested 30 suspected persons in connection with the killing.[6]

On September 16, an explosion caused by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted beside a flyover on Joint Road in Quetta partially destroyed a Frontier Corps (FC) vehicle. No casualties were reported.[7]

On September 14, unknown gunmen shot to death a health practitioner in an apparent sectarian attack.[8]

On September 14, unidentified gunmen killed the head of a local Shia organization called Anjuman Guldasta Ali Akbar, in Latifabad No 5 locality of Hyderabad.[9]
 
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North Waziristan operation — daunting challenge ahead



Flying at an altitude of 25,000 feet, the images taken from a C-130 aircraft are not as good as those from CIA-operated pilotless drones.
But these indigenously modified transport planes equipped with the day/night Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) system provide F-16s with reasonably good images and the correct coordinates to spot and strike a target with laser-guided precision bombs and eliminate it.

“No one, let alone those being targeted themselves, would know that they are being watched and monitored,” a security official remarked, looking at images showing a group of men darting out of a compound and scurrying to another in a mountainous terrain in North Waziristan.
The images were taken from a C-130; soon F-16s would roar into the sky to strike the target.

The Pakistan Air Force has spearheaded the campaign in Operation Zarb-i-Azb, pounding suspected militants’ hideouts in what until recently was the epicentre of terrorism in Pakistan as the military moved its infantry and mechanised forces to clear and hold a region where the state until June 15 enjoyed little to no authority.

Three months into the military operation, the military says it has cleared more than 80pc of the territory in North Waziristan including its regional headquarters of Miramshah, its now ruined sub-district Mirali and a communication line spreading over 80 kilometres up to Dattakhel.
As things stand, the military is now in Dattakhel, 35km west of Miramshah, consolidating its position and working out plans for the tough fight ahead in the densely forested Shawal Valley, facing occasional rocket and mortar fire from militants.

The battle in Shawal is going to be tough and bloody, should the military decide to move in. Little wonder, it is Shawal which has received much of the PAF pounding.
Having cleared Mirali, the forces are now moving northwest towards Spinwam to join forces at Tall. On Saturday night, a rocket slammed into the FC Fort killing three paramilitary soldiers. Reports suggest that militants holed up in Spinwam are now moving towards Ghariom in the south.

Looking at the map, roughly one quarter of the territory in North Waziristan remains to be cleared — Dattakhel and the areas beyond it, including Shawal. Surrounded by Preghar, a natural high-peaks fortification from one side, the military in Dattakhel on the other and a snowy winter coming up two to three months from now, militants, local and foreign, hiding in Shawal have a daunting challenge ahead.
“With snow around, mobility becomes difficult,” a security official said. “Militants would find it hard to come down and that’s when we will hit
them.”

The pressure is telling. Halim Khan, a key commander of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who, unlike others, had been pressing his chief to sue for peace, was heard recently cursing his leaders in a wireless communication. “Why did they pick up a fight if they had to run away?” an angry Halim Khan was overheard before hightailing it from Spinwam, according to a security official.

Until now, in the last three months, the military has faced little to no resistance. Most of the 44 casualties the military has suffered since the launch of the operation on June 15 have resulted from roadside bombings and rocket attacks.
Even the more than 900 militants, the military claims to have killed, perished in air bombings rather than combat.

The militant leadership has fled. Hafiz Gul Bahadur has relocated to Afghanistan’s southeastern Khost province along with his family and has taken up sanctuary with an Afghan commander, Azizullah.

An air strike prompted by intelligence on the presence of Gul Bahadur in Sanzaala in Dattakhel reportedly caused him serious head injuries but two intelligence agencies dispute the claim, insisting that the militant commander survived the attack and is hale and hearty in Khost.
Mullah Fazlullah, who heads what now remains of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, along with Shehryar Mehsud, is believed to have taken up sanctuary in the Naka district of Afghanistan’s Paktia province.

Khan Said alias Sajna is staying put in his South Waziristan redoubt, while continuing with efforts to come to some sort of a deal with the government that may give him a safe zone to hold on to, relocation of some military posts and permission for activities across the border.

TTP Punjab leader Asmatullah, long considered ‘a dove amongst hawks’, who had relocated along with the Haqqanis, has, not surprisingly, announced he will abandon militant ‘jihad’ inside Pakistan. Sajna may be next, should the government come to some sort of a tacit agreement with him.

As for the foreign militants including the Uzbeks, Chechens, Chinese Uighur Muslims and some Arabs, there are credible reports of their movement from Shawal to Wana and onwards to Zhob to their new jihad destination in Syria. Not all of them are leaving. Many are leaving their families behind, security officials said. Al Qaeda’s general command, because of the perils associated with the movement, is likely to stay on in the region, these officials said.

But while Zarb-i-Azb proceeds as planned, there is no indication of it coming to an end anytime soon. By the look of it, the operation is likely to continue until the end of December at least. But even if it is wound up by then, repatriation is unlikely to begin immediately afterwards.
A massive rebuilding process would have to be undertaken before that, the process of which has not yet begun, particularly in Mirali, much of which has now been reduced to rubble. With the military in full control of the tribal region, the political administration (in whatever form it remained until June 15) and a hamstrung Fata Secretariat have yet to undertake a damage and post-conflict need assessment exercise.

But the bigger question is whether the military will stay on after wrapping up the operation. Will it continue to hold the area after clearing it? The military was called in Swat to flush out the militants in May 2009 under Article 245 of the Constitution. A little over five years on, it is still in a commanding role.

Published in Dawn, September 15th , 2014
 
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The real fight will now be in Tirah and Shawal valleys. Let's see how that goes.
 
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has umar media posted any video of any battle or fight during zarb e azab operation??
 
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Are Jf-17 being used for air strikes against these scum bags?
ps. sorry, if this question has already been answered.
 
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Militancy

According to the Inter-Services Public Relations, Pakistani military airstrikes killed 40 militants, including unidentified foreign militants, and destroyed five militant hideouts in Datta Khel sub-district of North Waziristan on September 17. Fighter jets targeting the villages of Nawae Zilli and Zaram Asar north of Datta Khel destroyed terrorist hideouts and ammunition dumps. The airstrikes are a part of the ongoing military offensive Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan.[1]

In an update on the air strikes conducted by Pakistan Air Force on September 16 in Khyber Agency, the Inter-Services Public Relations said that fighter jets killed 23 militants and injured five in Dwa Toi and Wacha Wano areas of Tirah Valley. The air strikes also destroyed three militant hideouts and two ammunition dumps in Tor Darra and Kokikhel areas. According to official sources, the dead and injured militants were affiliated with the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group.[2]

As reported by The News on September 17, the “diplomatic community” in Islamabad has expressed concern that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Punjab’s announcement that it will cease violent attacks in Pakistan and instead focus on attacks inside Afghanistan may lead to increased cooperation with the Haqqani Network conducting cross-border attacks.[3]

On September 17, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal published reports on AQIS’s recent claim of responsibility for the attack on the Karachi naval dockyard and its subsequent attempt to hijack a Pakistani naval ship. AQIS spokesman Usama Mahmoud stated that the attackers had taken control of the Pakistani frigate PNS Zulfiqar and were attempting to attack nearby U.S. vessels when soldiers intervened. According to The Wall Street Journal, 10 militants and one naval officer died in the attack. A Pakistani security official stated that rogue officers were able to simply walk on board the PNS Zulfiqar by showing their service identity cards. Once on board, the plan was for the naval servicemen to assist additional militants in arriving by boat and stowing away on board. However, a gunner aboard the Zulfiqar was suspicious when he saw the militants approaching by boat dressed in Pakistani Marine uniforms. The militants were armed with AK-47s which are not standard for Pakistani Marines. The gunner fired a warning shot at the approaching boat which initiated a firefight. The last militant blew himself up in a suicide bombing when surrounded by security forces. The PNS Zulfiqar was scheduled to sail away the day of the attack to join an international naval flotilla. The plan reportedly was that once the PNS Zulfiqar got close to U.S. vessels, militants would use the onboard weapons systems to attack U.S. ships.[4]
 
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20 suspected militants were killed and 5 hideouts were destroyed in fresh air strikes in Datta Khel area of North Waziristan. :pakistan:
 
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North Waziristan operation — daunting challenge ahead



Flying at an altitude of 25,000 feet, the images taken from a C-130 aircraft are not as good as those from CIA-operated pilotless drones.
But these indigenously modified transport planes equipped with the day/night Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) system provide F-16s with reasonably good images and the correct coordinates to spot and strike a target with laser-guided precision bombs and eliminate it.

“No one, let alone those being targeted themselves, would know that they are being watched and monitored,” a security official remarked, looking at images showing a group of men darting out of a compound and scurrying to another in a mountainous terrain in North Waziristan.
The images were taken from a C-130; soon F-16s would roar into the sky to strike the target.

The Pakistan Air Force has spearheaded the campaign in Operation Zarb-i-Azb, pounding suspected militants’ hideouts in what until recently was the epicentre of terrorism in Pakistan as the military moved its infantry and mechanised forces to clear and hold a region where the state until June 15 enjoyed little to no authority.

Three months into the military operation, the military says it has cleared more than 80pc of the territory in North Waziristan including its regional headquarters of Miramshah, its now ruined sub-district Mirali and a communication line spreading over 80 kilometres up to Dattakhel.
As things stand, the military is now in Dattakhel, 35km west of Miramshah, consolidating its position and working out plans for the tough fight ahead in the densely forested Shawal Valley, facing occasional rocket and mortar fire from militants.

The battle in Shawal is going to be tough and bloody, should the military decide to move in. Little wonder, it is Shawal which has received much of the PAF pounding.
Having cleared Mirali, the forces are now moving northwest towards Spinwam to join forces at Tall. On Saturday night, a rocket slammed into the FC Fort killing three paramilitary soldiers. Reports suggest that militants holed up in Spinwam are now moving towards Ghariom in the south.

Looking at the map, roughly one quarter of the territory in North Waziristan remains to be cleared — Dattakhel and the areas beyond it, including Shawal. Surrounded by Preghar, a natural high-peaks fortification from one side, the military in Dattakhel on the other and a snowy winter coming up two to three months from now, militants, local and foreign, hiding in Shawal have a daunting challenge ahead.
“With snow around, mobility becomes difficult,” a security official said. “Militants would find it hard to come down and that’s when we will hit
them.”

The pressure is telling. Halim Khan, a key commander of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who, unlike others, had been pressing his chief to sue for peace, was heard recently cursing his leaders in a wireless communication. “Why did they pick up a fight if they had to run away?” an angry Halim Khan was overheard before hightailing it from Spinwam, according to a security official.

Until now, in the last three months, the military has faced little to no resistance. Most of the 44 casualties the military has suffered since the launch of the operation on June 15 have resulted from roadside bombings and rocket attacks.
Even the more than 900 militants, the military claims to have killed, perished in air bombings rather than combat.

The militant leadership has fled. Hafiz Gul Bahadur has relocated to Afghanistan’s southeastern Khost province along with his family and has taken up sanctuary with an Afghan commander, Azizullah.

An air strike prompted by intelligence on the presence of Gul Bahadur in Sanzaala in Dattakhel reportedly caused him serious head injuries but two intelligence agencies dispute the claim, insisting that the militant commander survived the attack and is hale and hearty in Khost.
Mullah Fazlullah, who heads what now remains of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, along with Shehryar Mehsud, is believed to have taken up sanctuary in the Naka district of Afghanistan’s Paktia province.

Khan Said alias Sajna is staying put in his South Waziristan redoubt, while continuing with efforts to come to some sort of a deal with the government that may give him a safe zone to hold on to, relocation of some military posts and permission for activities across the border.

TTP Punjab leader Asmatullah, long considered ‘a dove amongst hawks’, who had relocated along with the Haqqanis, has, not surprisingly, announced he will abandon militant ‘jihad’ inside Pakistan. Sajna may be next, should the government come to some sort of a tacit agreement with him.

As for the foreign militants including the Uzbeks, Chechens, Chinese Uighur Muslims and some Arabs, there are credible reports of their movement from Shawal to Wana and onwards to Zhob to their new jihad destination in Syria. Not all of them are leaving. Many are leaving their families behind, security officials said. Al Qaeda’s general command, because of the perils associated with the movement, is likely to stay on in the region, these officials said.

But while Zarb-i-Azb proceeds as planned, there is no indication of it coming to an end anytime soon. By the look of it, the operation is likely to continue until the end of December at least. But even if it is wound up by then, repatriation is unlikely to begin immediately afterwards.
A massive rebuilding process would have to be undertaken before that, the process of which has not yet begun, particularly in Mirali, much of which has now been reduced to rubble. With the military in full control of the tribal region, the political administration (in whatever form it remained until June 15) and a hamstrung Fata Secretariat have yet to undertake a damage and post-conflict need assessment exercise.

But the bigger question is whether the military will stay on after wrapping up the operation. Will it continue to hold the area after clearing it? The military was called in Swat to flush out the militants in May 2009 under Article 245 of the Constitution. A little over five years on, it is still in a commanding role.

Published in Dawn, September 15th , 2014

already posted.....check kar liya karo bhai...

Militancy

On September 17, Usama Mahmoud, the official spokesman of al Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent (AQIS), posted a statement on Twitter in Arabic, Bengali, English and Urdu explaining the group’s motivations for targeting a U.S. naval ship in the foiled naval dockyard attack in Karachi. He explained that the U.S. naval forces were targeted because of America’s ability to control the fortunes of the “Ummah” through its naval superiority. He reiterated that the U.S. was the group’s primary enemy and that the group would continue to fight against America and its interests. He also accused America of being responsible for the bloodshed of Muslims in countries like Afghanistan, Burma, Iraq, Mali, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen.[1]

According to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on September 18, airstrikes killed 23 suspected militants in Zaram and Ismail Khel areas of North Waziristan as part of the Pakistani military’s ongoing offensive, Operation Zarb-e-Azb.[2]

On September 17, the police arrested two suspected militants in a raid on Adezai village, Peshawar district, close to the Khyber Agency. The arrested militants, Wilayat and Misri Khan, are suspected to be involved in attacks on anti-Taliban militias and have links with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).[3]

On September 17, the police allegedly killed seven suspected TTP militants and arrested one in an encounter in Macchar Colony, Sohrab Goth, Karachi. According to District Malir Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rao Anwar, the raid was conducted on a tip-off about the presence of members of the TTP’s Waliur Rehman group. The police also seized a cache of explosives and weapons from the militants’ hideout.[4]
 
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The Afghan Roots of Pakistan’s Zarb-e-Azb Operation
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The Pakistani military is in the midst of an all-out offensive in North Waziristan, the roughly Delaware-sized region bordering Afghanistan's Khost and Paktika provinces, which has become the stomping ground for dozens of militant outfits.

The offensive comes on the heels of the collapse of peace talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) earlier this year. The failure of peace talks, and a series of attacks by the TTP in June, turned public sympathy against both the "good" and "bad" Taliban, providing the political space needed to carry out Operation Zarb-e-Azb ("sharp and cutting strike"). But there is another reason for the timing of the operation.

Pakistani officials, from the district level up to its military brass and civilian leadership, are hoping to clear militants from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) before American troops withdraw from Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal, some worry Afghanistan's military may not have the technical capability needed to secure the border. Others fear Afghanistan's government might instead support militants fighting the Pakistani state, pointing to increasingly frequent cross-border raids by militants based there, and the continuing refusal of Afghanistan to turn over senior TTP leaders to Pakistan.

We hear the Afghans gave Mangal Bagh 10 army trucks, and he parades around in them," says Roshan Mehsud, one of the most senior government officials in Khyber agency, referring to the truck-stop-janitor-turned-cleric who leads Lashkar-e-Islam (LI), a local Islamist militant group seeking to imposesharia law in the region. The conflict in Khyber has killed more than 1,400 people in the lasttwo years, according to the FATA Research Centre, an Islamabad-based think-tank tracking the fighting. Mehsud is at his wits-end trying to protect the road outside his office, a two-lane highway that connects Peshawar, Pakistan on the east with Jalalabad, Afghanistan on the west.

"They like to fire tracer bullets into the NATO containers, especially into the driver's cabin, so everything catches fire," his assistant explains over a dinner of curried okra consumed on the floor of his heavily-guarded office. "A few days ago, the truck was full of plastic water bottles. They caught fire and there was so much smoke, it took us hours to put [it] out."

The American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 gave birth to a war economy in the region, and competing groups of militants have set-up shop along the road outside Mehsud's office, in hope of plundering containers destined for NATO soldiers, making off with everything from armored Humvees to cans of USAID cooking oil marked "not for sale." By 2008, the preeminent group of highway robbers was LI, led by Bagh.

LI fighters had occasionally fought Pakistani and Afghan Taliban militants for control of the Peshawar-Jalalabad road, meaning they were a nuisance to Pakistan, but not an immediate threat. In June 2008, LI threatened to bring its brand of sharia to the city of Peshawar, and Pakistan sent in troops, sparking a battle that continues today and has produced more casualties than any other conflict in FATA.

In April 2013, Pakistan launched airstrikes and air-lifted thousands of troops to retake the Tirah Valley, a remote mountainous region across the border from Afghanistan's Nangarhar province that had become a base for LI and the TTP. According to military and civilian officials I spoke to, LI's leadership, including Bagh, have fled to Afghanistan, where they still operate from safe havens in the district of Nazyan. (Much of the 2,600 km-long Pakistan-Afghanistan border continues to be a subject of dispute between the neighbors.)
For more than a decade, American and Afghan officials have accused Pakistan of providing safe havens and logistical support to militant leaders like Jalaluddin Haqqani and Hafiz Gul Bahadur, whose fighters live and train in North Waziristan, but make regular trips into Afghanistan to participate in the insurgency. In 2009 though, a second retrograde flow of insurgents began to appear, and militants seeking to topple the Pakistani state began to find spaces to operate out of Afghanistan.

"For quite some time, Pakistan and its security organizations have been communicating with the American and Afghan political setup that somehow these people have linkages... [the] TTP has safe havens and sanctuaries across the border," says Athar Abbas, a retired Pakistan general who served as the military's spokesman from 2009 to 2012.

He stated further: "Pakistan has been saying there is a problem in [North Waziristan, but] it's not the real or complete problem of Afghanistan. The United States claims the entire problem of Afghanistan lies in... and originates in [North Waziristan]."

Abbas also notes that Pakistan has carried out ground operations to clear militants out of six agencies along the border, yet the insurgency continues on both sides of the boundary. Frustrated with the lack of security on the border, he says Pakistan repeatedly offered to put up a fence there, even to lay land mines, only to have the idea dismissed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Now, Pakistan's complaints about Afghanistan's unwillingness or inability to secure its side of the border are becoming difficult to ignore.

On Aug. 5, Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz asked Afghanistan to "hand over" Maulana Fazlullah, who now heads the TTP, and has operated out of Afghanistan's Kunar province since fleeing a Pakistan offensive in his native Swat Valley in 2009.

Aziz's remarks came after a series of particularly brazen cross-border raids by Fazlullah's fighters. The skirmishes have prompted Pakistan to pursue militants into Afghanistan, sparking deadly clashes with Afghan border forces. Dozens of similar raids have taken place since 2012, killing 334 people, according to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, which issues annual reports on the border conflict.

Fazlullah's career as a militant leader began in the town of Imam Dherai, in his native Swat Valley, more than 70 miles from the Afghanistan border. In 2009, after a deal to allow the limited enforcement of sharialaw in Swat fell through, Pakistani troops moved into the scenic valley, briefly displacing 2.5 million civilians. Within a few weeks, the army had regained technical control of the valley, but Fazlullah and other militant leaders had escaped, making their way west across Pakistan's Lower Dir and into Afghanistan's Kunar province. Five years later, Mingora, the largest city in the Swat Valley, still feels like a city under occupation.

Most multi-story buildings and the surrounding hilltops are crowned by posts built from sandbags, draped in chicken wire. Convoys of troops patrol the streets, patting down locals at checkpoints sprinkled throughout the narrow streets. An entire Pakistani army division is still deployed there, and plans are in place to build a cantonment and expand a cadet college -- the military is here for the long haul.

On a visit to Mingora in October 2013, I asked one of the most senior Pakistani army officials there why so many troops were still present. His answer was simple: "They [Fazlullah and other leaders] are sitting in Afghanistan waiting to come back."

Pakistan is not simply worried that the TTP will find a space to operate out of in Afghanistan. For years now,

Pakistani officials have peddled the theory that groups like the TTP are being funded and supported by the Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies. Ironically, some of those claims appear to actually be coming true.
In October 2013, American special forces broke up a meeting between Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) agents and Latif Mehsud, the former second-in-command of the TTP, who has operated out of Afghanistan since 2010.

Aimal Faizi, Karzai's spokesman, told reporters the NDS had been working with Latif "for a long period of time." The meeting "was part of an NDS project like every other intelligence agency is doing," he explained, alluding to an apparent quid-pro-quo of Pakistani support for the Afghan Taliban.

Eight months earlier, in February 2013, the NDS announced it had captured one of the TTP's founding members, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, during a raid near the Pakistani border in Nangarhar province. At the time, the capture was hailed as a sign of improving relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Muhammad commanded a battalion of 6,000 fighters, including some Afghans and Arabs, until 2009, when the Pakistani military flushed militants out of Bajaur. Yet Muhammad continues to remain in NDS custody -- the Karzai administration is apparently holding on to him as long as Pakistan holds on to senior Afghan Taliban figures.

While Afghanistan doesn't seem to be cooperating with Pakistan's counterterrorism efforts, American forces have provided important technical and logistical assistance to the military in FATA. At least seven drone strikes have taken place in North Waziristan since the start of Zarb-e-Azb. And Pakistani officials have, uncharacteristically, admitted that they were jointly conducted. But that cooperation may be coming to an end. With the impending U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the CIA, which operates the drones, has already shut down most of its operations near the Pakistani border.

"Now there is pressure on them [the TTP] through drone strikes," says Rehman Malik, who served as Pakistan's interior minister between 2008 and 2013. "I don't think the Afghan army or law enforcement have got that much capability [to conduct drone strikes.]"

"[Cooperation] was very much there in terms of intelligence," continues Malik, whose term included the height of the American drone campaign between 2009 and 2011. "If we had been given the technology along with the intelligence information, we could have performed the same functions."

Until Pakistan has the technology to operate a fleet of lethal drones of its own, former and current Pakistani officials know they need the United States to pursue men like Fazlullah and Bagh.

They are just hoping the Americans stick around a while longer, at least until Pakistan can get a handle on militants operating in FATA.

And so, after patiently answering my questions about his efforts to combat LI, Roshan Mehsud had a question for me. "You're an American, what do you think. Will they just leave Afghanistan?"

Umar Farooq is a freelance journalist who has reported from Pakistan for Al Jazeera English, the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal, and the IRIN News agency. Read his work at umar-farooq.com and follow him on twitter: @UmarFarooq_.
AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images
 
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