RabzonKhan
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2008
- Messages
- 4,289
- Reaction score
- 3
- Country
- Location
MOD EDIT: Old FATA thread here: http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistans-war/8947-fata-situation.html
Editorial: Reclaiming the Frontier Region cities
June 12, 2009
Over 70 terrorists have been reported killed after security forces attacked Taliban positions with artillery and helicopter gunships in the Janikhel area of the Bannu region on Wednesday. The punishment suffered by the Taliban is heavy and it is the government that is now on the “retaliatory” offensive, making the Taliban believe that every action of theirs will be met with counter-action. The government’s revenge is for the Taliban’s abduction of the young cadets of Razmak College. There is also the message in it that the Frontier Region, as opposed to FATA, is no longer an area of free run for the warlords and their minions.
The army’s attack on the Janikhel-Bakakhel stronghold has also killed a Taliban commander. There is news too that 23 more terrorists were killed in the various areas of Swat, Malakand and Dir, while their commander Waliullah has surrendered to the army. The people of Dir have rallied behind the army and are determined to punish the Taliban for killing innocent people while they were praying in the local mosque. The people of FR Bannu also know that this time the operation in the wake of the abduction of the Razmak boys is completely justified and that a decisive battle against them has to be fought. They have moved from the FR area to Bannu city or gone to the more secure areas in the FATA region.
The same Bannu Cantonment where the army seemed to hunker down and not reply to the Taliban atrocities not long ago is now the take-off pad for the gunships that are punishing the terrorists sent in by the union of warlords presided over by Baitullah Mehsud. The interesting thing is that Mehsud himself is reported to have met the boys and said that the decision to abduct them was made by some lower commanders. Be that as it may, the terrorist warriors from South and North Waziristan and other areas under their control are finally getting a taste of military confrontation with Pakistan. This time Islamabad has reacted to the ascendancy of the Taliban in Bannu, Kohat, Hangu and onwards in Dera Ismail Khan. This has made the current operation an uphill task. The Taliban have been destroying schools — boys’ and girls’ both — taking people for ransom and above all making the local population believe that Pakistan was gone from the area forever.
This string of cities lining the border of the NWFP with the FATA agencies has gradually fallen under the tutelage of Baitullah Mehsud and his local commanders. If the idea was to gradually subsume the tribal areas into the NWFP through showcasing the provincial administration there, just the opposite has happened. These cities have been tribalised again and are subject to the lawlessness that one never associated with them. The embarrassing fact is that the local civil servants here have been working at the behest of the Taliban and have de facto recognised the authority of Baitullah’s Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Furthermore, the Punjabi jihadi militias have gone from the plains of South Punjab and joined the Taliban at Darra Adam Khel, thus complicating the map of the battle that Pakistan now has to join.
Responding late has its disadvantages but the current operation had to come only after national reaction to what the Taliban were doing had become coherent. The main factor that held back the national consensus was the “Islamic” and “Sharia” aspects of the Taliban appeal. The nation did not react as much to the inhuman violence of the Taliban as to the violation of the edicts of Islam after the NWFP went into negotiations with the TNSM cleric Sufi Muhammad. Once an all-Pakistan reaction came to the fore the local populations living under the savage control of the warlords became convinced that what they were experiencing was not Islamic utopia but sheer terrorism. The military operation has now inclined them to resist and fight their erstwhile masters.
The idea is to first pacify the FR areas before going into the den of the TTP in South Waziristan. We must re-establish the authority of the NWFP administration in these cities because they will serve as the hinterland of the coming war. We already know that the various groups of the Taliban are uniting in the face of what they think is the endgame phase. They hope that Pakistan will go politically soft as the battle proceeds. They know that this is the only way they can win against one of the best armies in the world. But this war has to be fought to the end — the end of the Taliban menace — for which a forceful and enduring national consensus has to be maintained.
Editorial: Reclaiming the Frontier Region cities
June 12, 2009
Over 70 terrorists have been reported killed after security forces attacked Taliban positions with artillery and helicopter gunships in the Janikhel area of the Bannu region on Wednesday. The punishment suffered by the Taliban is heavy and it is the government that is now on the “retaliatory” offensive, making the Taliban believe that every action of theirs will be met with counter-action. The government’s revenge is for the Taliban’s abduction of the young cadets of Razmak College. There is also the message in it that the Frontier Region, as opposed to FATA, is no longer an area of free run for the warlords and their minions.
The army’s attack on the Janikhel-Bakakhel stronghold has also killed a Taliban commander. There is news too that 23 more terrorists were killed in the various areas of Swat, Malakand and Dir, while their commander Waliullah has surrendered to the army. The people of Dir have rallied behind the army and are determined to punish the Taliban for killing innocent people while they were praying in the local mosque. The people of FR Bannu also know that this time the operation in the wake of the abduction of the Razmak boys is completely justified and that a decisive battle against them has to be fought. They have moved from the FR area to Bannu city or gone to the more secure areas in the FATA region.
The same Bannu Cantonment where the army seemed to hunker down and not reply to the Taliban atrocities not long ago is now the take-off pad for the gunships that are punishing the terrorists sent in by the union of warlords presided over by Baitullah Mehsud. The interesting thing is that Mehsud himself is reported to have met the boys and said that the decision to abduct them was made by some lower commanders. Be that as it may, the terrorist warriors from South and North Waziristan and other areas under their control are finally getting a taste of military confrontation with Pakistan. This time Islamabad has reacted to the ascendancy of the Taliban in Bannu, Kohat, Hangu and onwards in Dera Ismail Khan. This has made the current operation an uphill task. The Taliban have been destroying schools — boys’ and girls’ both — taking people for ransom and above all making the local population believe that Pakistan was gone from the area forever.
This string of cities lining the border of the NWFP with the FATA agencies has gradually fallen under the tutelage of Baitullah Mehsud and his local commanders. If the idea was to gradually subsume the tribal areas into the NWFP through showcasing the provincial administration there, just the opposite has happened. These cities have been tribalised again and are subject to the lawlessness that one never associated with them. The embarrassing fact is that the local civil servants here have been working at the behest of the Taliban and have de facto recognised the authority of Baitullah’s Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Furthermore, the Punjabi jihadi militias have gone from the plains of South Punjab and joined the Taliban at Darra Adam Khel, thus complicating the map of the battle that Pakistan now has to join.
Responding late has its disadvantages but the current operation had to come only after national reaction to what the Taliban were doing had become coherent. The main factor that held back the national consensus was the “Islamic” and “Sharia” aspects of the Taliban appeal. The nation did not react as much to the inhuman violence of the Taliban as to the violation of the edicts of Islam after the NWFP went into negotiations with the TNSM cleric Sufi Muhammad. Once an all-Pakistan reaction came to the fore the local populations living under the savage control of the warlords became convinced that what they were experiencing was not Islamic utopia but sheer terrorism. The military operation has now inclined them to resist and fight their erstwhile masters.
The idea is to first pacify the FR areas before going into the den of the TTP in South Waziristan. We must re-establish the authority of the NWFP administration in these cities because they will serve as the hinterland of the coming war. We already know that the various groups of the Taliban are uniting in the face of what they think is the endgame phase. They hope that Pakistan will go politically soft as the battle proceeds. They know that this is the only way they can win against one of the best armies in the world. But this war has to be fought to the end — the end of the Taliban menace — for which a forceful and enduring national consensus has to be maintained.
Last edited by a moderator: