Revolt is a loaded word, conjuring up images of the Free Syrian Army, the Anbar Awakening, and the Libyan civil war.  In small pockets across eastern Afghanistan, however, farmers, shopkeepers and others are taking the fight to the Taliban over the group's abusive tendencies.  Though entirely isolated from one another, instances of violent resistance to harsh Taliban rules have spiked this past summer-brought on by school closings in Ghazni, music bans in Nuristan, beheadings in Paktia and murders in Laghman, among other causes.  While a small number of Afghans admire the Taliban, most who support it do so because they are coerced, or believe that the group is less predatory than the government, though that's hardly an endorsement.  So what precisely does it take for Afghans to stand up to the Taliban, and what are their options?

When I served in eastern Afghanistan as a civilian advisor to the U.S. military, I closely monitored the Taliban's relationship with the local population and discerned a number of red lines the Taliban could not cross, depending on the retaliatory options available to their victims.  While working closely with a dozen or so of these nascent rebel groups in Laghman and Nuristan Provinces, I noted that the amount of Taliban abuse most Afghans will endure before considering rebellion in one way or another depends on a number of inter-related factors (incidentally, the calculus for whether Afghans will join the Taliban due to government abuse is similar): the severity of the grievance, the locals' ability to retaliate, and the community's resilience to withstand inevitable counter-attacks if they do rise up.  More specifically, they ask:

1.      Does this abuse or restriction prevent my family from earning a living or even surviving?  ‘Prevent' is the key word here.  Afghans will walk an extra five miles every day to avoid a Taliban checkpoint on the way to a bazaar, and as long as they are able to get to the bazaar, the obstacle can be classified as a mere nuisance.  If, however, the Taliban is restricting movement to such a degree that there is a threat of being shaken down or attacked every time Afghans leave their home, the Taliban is playing with fire. 

2.      Does it prevent the men in my family from receiving an education?  Again, as long as they get the education, even if the Taliban dictates that Islam should be taught in a certain way, such slights are likely to be overlooked in the face of overwhelming force.  Tactful members of the Taliban will usually encourage changes in a ‘dangerously westernizing' curriculum through intimidation but stop short of actually closing them by force, given the value Afghans place on education and their willingness to fight for it.  

3.      Do I have the support I need (fellow fighters, weapons, fortifications) to retaliate?  Afghans make decisions collectively, so if the village elders do not support a counter-attack, it will rarely happen.  If an individual retaliates without consulting his elders, he risks becoming a social pariah or being thrown to the wolves when the Taliban comes hunting for payback. When the community does approve, it is usually in the form of revenge for a very specific grievance (such as a murder), targeted accordingly and proportionately to convey to the Taliban that the community does not intend to start a war but rather to secure limited retribution and make it known that a line was crossed.  For instance, a specific Talib may be singled out and attacked for a crime he committed.  Sometimes the Taliban will allow the retaliation to go unanswered and sometimes they won't.  If the retaliation simply entails chasing the Taliban out of an area with sticks, the insurgents are likely to let it slide and come back in a few days as though nothing had happened.  Yet frequently the leader of an uprising will be beaten or executed if he is viewed as a threat, rather than simply helping his community blow off a little steam.  

4.      Do I have the support I need to retaliate continuously and maintain a heightened defense posture indefinitely?  If the goal is permanent expulsion of the Taliban or if the community knows any retaliation will be met with a harsh response, they must feel confident that their supply of ammunition and fighters runs deep.  Men have to quit work or school and devote all their time to defense; all movement and communication becomes riskier and more costly; intelligence networks of spotters and infiltrators have to be established and maintained; and savings are spent in days on matching the Taliban's capabilities, including makeshift bunkers, RPGs, PKM machine guns and even DSHKA heavy machine guns.  If the community lacks the resources or connections to live under siege or project power at least a mile in every direction, they will not survive permanent enmity with the Taliban. 

Careful not to push the community too far, the Taliban dances a fine line as well.  Abuse the population too little and they won't fear you, but abuse them too much and you give them nothing left to lose.  Inevitably, the Taliban either misread the population's redlines or arrogantly exceed them, confident that no one would dare challenge their writ no matter how cruel they are.  When faced with a possible rebellion, the Taliban will frequently roll back their demands (re-opening schools, for instance) and the population will resume its previous indulgence of modest though frustrating restrictions, such as the requirement to stay at home at night.  And the dance continues. 

Ultimately, it is not rare for Afghan civilians to fight the Taliban independent of the government; far harder is sustaining the battle beyond the adrenaline rush of the first few days or weeks.  Once a community warns or attacks the Taliban, they become perpetual targets in repeated and intense firefights requiring ample ammunition that most civilians lack.  Moreover, any area where the Taliban can exert control is remote and by definition difficult for Afghan and NATO forces to reach, so the concept of ‘back-up' becomes laughable to these minutemen.  Once locals retaliate or decide to revolt, then, where do they get help?

Extended family and friends are the first people these fighters ask for assistance.  Nearly every family in eastern Afghanistan has at least one very old weapon, typically an AK-47 with maybe one magazine of ammunition-enough for a single brief encounter with the Taliban.  Families and friends will loan out these weapons and offer their sons (especially if they are unemployed) to help defend rebel homes and safe houses, sure to come under Taliban fire in the coming months.  Next, depending on how reliable and trustworthy local law enforcement is, these fighters will ask for ammunition, sand bags and other supplies from the District Chief of Police, who may give a token offering-despite it being illegal to do so-simply out of sympathy and guilt that he and his men lack the resources to help in any meaningful way. 

Next they will ask any senior official in the provincial government who will listen, including the Chief of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Chief of Police, and the Governor himself.  They may make progress here if they are well connected, but the best the rebels can hope for is that powerful provincial figures will call in favors to wealthy civilian colleagues who are in a position to offer money and men to their cause.  Alternatively, rebels may get referred to Kabul or to the U.S. military, both of which work jointly on the most legitimate form of assistance any anti-Taliban fighters might secure-namely, sponsorship under the Afghan Local Police (ALP) program or some variant. 

In 2010, the Afghan Ministry of Interior developed the ALP to train groups of several hundred local men to secure and defend their own communities, frequently in secluded and key locations that restrict Taliban movement (e.g., at valley mouths).  They currently number about 16,000 with an additional 14,000 planned before the drawdown of NATO's ISAF combat forces in 2014.  In contrast to other Afghan police units deployed to these areas from elsewhere, these men have a greater stake in their community's security and superior knowledge of its people and terrain.  The program has been hailed by ISAF as a key ingredient to stabilizing volatile areas where traditional military and police are unable to patrol, while human rights groups have lambasted it as simply the latest installment of predatory government-sponsored militias in Afghanistan. 

Regardless, Afghans and particularly members of nascent uprisings are clamoring for ALP sponsorship as the next logical step in permanently expelling the Taliban, insistent the program is the perfect mix of local initiative and distant governmental support.  When I met with leaders of these rebel groups, for instance, they would frequently mention ALP before I even learned their full names.  Most rebels are banking on support of some kind from their government, but many are surprised and dismayed to learn that Kabul either won't or can't help, despite their shared goal of defeating the Taliban and the government's terrible track record of going it alone. 

The ALP waitlist is long and subject to many months of preparation, horse-trading, ethnic rivalries and personality clashes at the provincial and national levels.  Because it takes many months to get an ALP unit off the ground (even after it has been approved in Kabul), the U.S. military also relies on a number of ad hoc substitutes or precursors to the ALP, which allows ISAF to fill a security void without as much red tape.  As with the ALP, the results of these programs vary considerably, with some securing the population and others exploiting it.   In the last year, most U.S. efforts have been shut down by President Karzai, who sees these groups as a threat and competitor to Afghan forces. Regardless, most ‘uprisings' fail to secure any kind of sponsorship, as neither Kabul nor ISAF have the resources or flexibility to offer anything of substance to such a large number of groups in equal need.  That Special Operations Command recently suspended all ALP training for a month to better screen for infiltration threats only furthers the backlog, though for an entirely justifiable reason.    

Ironically, despite the widespread resentment of the Afghan government, there is no shortage of local minutemen begging for support simply because-for many of them-the government is the only game in town.  Yet there are some uprisings that are refusing Kabul's assistance, even when it is forthcoming.  At first glance, of course, any group that can fight the Taliban without government support frees up resources for other much-needed efforts, but there is a dreaded word in Afghanistan for civilian groups of fighters with well-stocked armories-militias-and they typically behave like the Taliban with a different name. 

This summer's uprising in Ghazni, for instance, has been so overwhelmed by factionalism, co-option and internal conflict that it has become a case study in the perils of encouraging the wrong rebellion. 

[Continue reading David H. Young's analysis of the Ghazni uprising here]

David H. Young is a conflict resolution expert based in Washington, DC, and was a civilian advisor to the US Army in eastern Afghanistan.  His website is www.justwars.org. 

On Wednesday August 29, the dismissal of Afghan intelligence chief, Rahmatullah Nabil was officially confirmed. The news, which first began circulating some 48 hours earlier on BBC Persian, was met with shock by many Afghans in the capital city of Kabul.

A majority of the members of the lower house of Afghanistan's parliament were so outraged by the news that they immediately began drafting a demand letter to President Karzai to ask him to clarify the logic behind the dismissal, so widely respected was Nabil's tenure.

Some Members of Parliament (MPs), including the acting speaker of the house Haji Zahir Qadir, a Pashtun strongman from eastern Afghanistan, went further, demanding that Nabil be reinstated as the head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS).

Around the capital, many social media outlets published opinion pieces expressing the widespread fear that Nabil's dismissal would be disastrous for the national security of Afghanistan.

Many Afghans wondered why in a time of growing insecurity, evidenced by the increase in terrorist attacks in and around the capital, the president would deal such a blow to the nation's main defense against the insurgency.

According to Nabil himself, his dismissal was routine. President Karzai, he indicated, wanted to change the NDS head every two years, and because he was aware of this he did not contest the action.

Other high-ranking officials corroborated Nabil's account, although they would not go on the record.

The official account, however, fails to reconcile the fact that Nabil only served some eight months in the position. Also notably absent from the statement about the dismissal was the fact that Nabil's appointment was approved by an overwhelming majority of the lower house: 208 out of a total of 249 votes. It is the apparent inconsistency between the official account and the reality that has perplexed so many Afghans and left them wondering whether there are other unstated reasons that led to Nabil's dismissal.

Nabil's accession to the highest ranks of the Afghan government was not typical to say the least. Unlike most high-ranking officials, he had no family connection to President Karzai. He began his ascent to the top serving as a junior staffer in the Presidential Palace, eventually making his way to the top of the President's Protection Force (PPF), where he served for six years. During that time he remained a virtually unknown figure outside of the innermost presidential circle.

Inside sources say that because of his quiet efficiency in the PPF, Nabil was President Karzai's first choice to replace his predecessor at the NDS, Amrullah Saleh, who had resigned over disagreements with Karzai.

According to those who have worked closely with Nabil, he is widely respected for his frankness and honesty, traits that are not always apparent, as he is reluctant to promote himself and his achievements.

Nabil also refuses to take ethno-centric positions, making him something of a lone ranger in a capital often consumed by tribalism and clannishness. While many Afghans who have watched him closely have taken comfort in his lack of ethnic or sectarian partisanship, his objectivity may have left him vulnerable, without the type of inside supporters on whom he could rely to promote his cause inside the president's inner circles.

Moreover, prior to Nabil's dismissal he had intensified efforts to rout out suspected Pakistani and Iranian spies at the highest levels of the Afghan government, making him a possible target of some of Afghanistan's neighbors and their emissaries inside the country.

Earlier this month some Pakistani senior officials went so far as to accuse the NDS of plotting to attack strategic targets inside Lahore and Islamabad. Although there was no proof offered to support these claims, the Pakistani reaction itself may have been telling. Whatever it was the NDS under Nabil was doing, it was enough to ruffle the feathers of these various Pakistani officials.

Some Afghan analysts believe that it was the pressure that such outside powers were able to exert on the Afghan leadership via their domestic interest groups that led to Nabil's demise.

Other Afghans believe that Nabil's departure is just one of many upsets that are slated to take place. In the past month, rumors of other possible high-ranking changes have surfaced daily on Facebook, Twitter, and in other media. On August 4, for example, president Karzai issued a decree that  replaced Nabil by Asadullah Khaled, the current minister of tribal affairs; Interior Minister Bismillah Khan by  Mojtaba Patang, deputy minister of Afghan Public Protection Forces will replace; Bismillah Khan  is named as the minister of defense; while there are speculations that further changes will occur with the president's chief of staff, Karim Khorram, will replace Fazal Ahmad Manawi, the head of the Afghan Independent Commission (IEC); and Manawi will be made Attorney General.

This long list of changes is seen to be the beginning of a broad transformation of the country's political landscape that will culminate in the presidential elections of 2014. From this perspective, Nabil's dismissal is regarded as part of the president's survivalist overhaul, which some see as his attempt to block what should otherwise be a stable and democratic transfer of power. They see an Afghan president trying to concentrate power in the hands of the Karzai or Popalzai clans, a move similar to what Vladimir Putin did in Russia with Dmitry Medvedev.

In this scenario, there is speculation that President Karzai is looking to Qayom Karzai as his successor, or if he meets with too much opposition, perhaps paving the way for an alternative Popalzai or Kandahari president.

Whether he will be successful in his power grab is another question. Already, the president's aspirations for 2014 are being challenged by many opposition figures, and by his fellow Pashtuns, some of whom have criticized him vociferously. Haji Zahir Qadir and other leading Pashtun figures outside the Kandahar region, for example, are his loudest critics. If these voices gain support, President Karzai's ploys could backfire and move the Pashtun center of power from the south to the east or in between.

As beloved as Nabil may be in many circles, the National Directorate of Security itself still looms as a dark force in the minds of many Afghans. Ten years of democratic rule have not been sufficient to erase the deep memories of what the organization was like during the previous eras of communist, warlord, and Taliban rule.

To change that image, many believe that it is critical that the NDS cleanse its ranks and replace them with younger, more educated Afghans who do not have the same blood on their hands that many of their elders do. These are the types of changes that Nabil was attempting to make in the organization, the types of changes that earned him the respect of so many that yearn for a more modern and progressive Afghanistan, one that protects their rights and provides them opportunities as citizens, regardless of ethnicity, sect, or tribal affiliation.

They point to the hard work he was doing in places like Ghazni to rout out the Taliban and the insurgents who have been wreaking havoc on the general population there. His plan was to motivate Afghans to join the fight against the Taliban and other extremists in the heartland, and outside Afghan borders.

To many Afghans, Nabil's dismissal is more evidence that they are losing the battle for their country, and a painful betrayal by a democratically-elected president who now seems bent on hurting the country if that will allow him and his kind to keep their monopoly on power. It's a sad time for Afghan patriots and a sadder one for Afghanistan as a whole.

Waliullah Rahmani is an expert on international security and terrorism. He is currently running the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies.

As Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was declaring the "fight against extremism and terrorism" as his own war at the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) Kakul (located less than a mile away from the now demolished bin Laden villa in Abbottabad) on August 13, militants were planning two audacious attacks: One against a key security installation in the country's heartland, and another on innocent civilians in the remote northern areas.

Less than 72 hours after Kayani's address, which many observers termed a landmark speech because of its tone, wording and timing, nine armed men in uniforms belonging to security forces mounted a daring attack on Minhas Airbase Kamra, located less than 70 kilometers west of the country's capital Islamabad, on the Grand Trunk (GT) Road leading to Peshawar.

The second attack, more barbarous in nature, was carried out in the Bubusar area of Mansehra district, located around 100 miles north of Islamabad, where armed men wearing military uniforms forced 20 Shia Muslims off a passenger bus and shot them at point blank range.

Responsibility for both the attacks was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the group considered by the Pakistani government to be the ‘bad Taliban.' Both the attacks were not the first of their kind. The Minhas Airbase in Kamra was the third major attack on a military base since 2009, while the killing of Shias in Mansehra was the third incident of its nature in the past six months.

Over the years, Pakistan's army and intelligence agencies have been under severe criticism over their failure -- and, many believe, their willful negligence -- in dealing with the various Taliban and sectarian groups that continue to keep their bases and training facilities in the tribal areas, and spread their tentacles to cities as far away as Karachi and Lahore.

Better late than never

In this context, General Kayani's statement, given the day before Pakistan's Independence Day, is of utmost importance. The country's most powerful man touched the right chord by warning of a "civil war" and calling the fight against terrorism "our own war."

Aside from falling right before Independence Day, the timing of General Kayani's statement is significant for a number of reasons: Pakistan's ambassador to Washington Sherry Rehman and the country's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar have recently openly stated that the days of strategic depth -- Pakistan's pursuit of its interests in Afghanistan by working to install a Pakistan-friendly government, as well as keeping India away from establishing a foothold in the country -- are over. Pakistan's spymaster Zaheerul Islam also held "productive" talks with his CIA counterpart David Petraeus during his recent visit to Washington. And U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, after months of frustrating efforts to convince Pakistan to take action against the militant groups operating on its soil, expressed some degree of optimism by telling Reuters that Pakistan will be launching an operation against militants in North Waziristan.

Is there room for suspicion?

Judging by its wording and tone, General Kayani's Independence Day statement leaves no room for suspicions about the intention of the Pakistani security establishment with regards to extremism and terrorism. Yet, Sec. Panetta's latest revelation, despite its optimism, leaves some question marks when he states that the main target of the possible operation in North Waziristan will be the Pakistani Taliban rather than the Haqqani network.

The point in question is: has Pakistan really done away with the ‘strategic depth' approach towards Afghanistan? If so, what keeps the country's armed forces from going after individuals such as the Haqqanis, Hafiz Gul Bahadar, (a leader of Taliban fighters in North Waziristan who is believed to have good ties with the Pakistani establishment as well as in close contacts with the Arab fighters), and Maulvi Nazeer (a militant commander based in the Wana area of South Waziristan, Wazir is an anti-U.S. but pro-Pakistan leader, and liked by the Pakistani establishment),  instead of chasing the already shattered TTP?

After all, individuals forming the TTP umbrella, such as Hakimullah Mehsud, (leader of the TTP in South Waziristan), Faqir Muhammad, (the Taliban leader in Bajaur tribal agency) Fazlullah (a Taliban leader from Swat who is believed to have escaped into Afghanistan and to be involved in carrying out attacks on Pakistani civilians and security forces from there) and the warlord Mangal Bagh (head of the banned Lashkar-e-Islam) were once overlooked for being the ‘good guys,' but are now turning their guns on innocent civilians as well as the country's strategic installations.  

Another duplicity that still provides room for suspicion is the freedom of propaganda and movement allowed to people such as Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. The banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief, who is wanted in India for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and is the subject of a bounty put out by the United States calling for information leading to his arrest, is still leading pro-jihad rallies in major Pakistani cities, including the capital, without being stopped or even warned by the authorities.

This kind of willful negligence with regards to people such as Hafiz Saeed, Gul Bahadar and Maulvi Nazeer, as well as groups like the Haqqani Network, is calling the writ of the state into question for ordinary Pakistanis, who have already lost trust in their political and military leadership for a number of other reasons.

For years, Pakistan has been accused of having a double standard regarding its actions against the militants by its allies and neighbors. This is the first time since Musharraf's era that the world is hearing Pakistan's top cop owning the anti-terror war in the strongest words, which is refreshing.

However, Pakistanis and non-Pakistanis alike want General Kayani to adopt an evenhanded approach towards all militants. People across the country welcomed the army when they ousted the Taliban from Swat in May 2009, and helped return the displaced people to their houses within a few months.

All of this goodwill was washed away when the army went after the TTP in South Waziristan the same year, though. Nothing resulted from that operation, except the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom are still living in refugee camps. The people of the Bajaur tribal agency, where the army launched an operation in mid-2008, have yet to return to their houses. Similarly, the people of Bara district in the Khyber tribal agency have been living under a curfew for the past three years, while thousands of former residents are living in refugee camps with no sign of calm returning to their homes. And the militants are still targeting leaders who challenged the Taliban and raised Lashkars (peace committees) in their respective areas.

Those are the factors that shatter the people's trust in the state and its security agencies. To win their support like General Kayani wants to do, the political and military leadership need to conduct meaningful operations against all the militant groups in Pakistan, and block the escape routes of their leaders to prevent the repetition of what happened in the cases of Mullah Fazlullah, Faqir Muhammad, Mangal Bagh and Hakimullah Mehsud, all of whom escaped previous military campaigns. Only then will the public come forward and own the war alongside the Pakistani government and security forces.

Daud Khattak is a Pakistani journalist who writes about FATA, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Khattak worked for several Pakistani newspapers in Peshawar and Islamabad as well as for several years in Kabul, Afghanistan.

A soldier patrols Sub Jail Jutial, where Baba Jan is incarcerated. Photo by author.

Last year, human rights activist Baba Jan Hunzai spoke out as an advocate for the former residents of Hunza Valley, whose homes were swept away by the lake formed after a 2010 land slide blocked the flow of the Hunza River. Named the Attabad Lake, it displaced over 1,000 people who lost their homes, livelihoods and access to the world. When these displacements did not get the government's attention, and Pakistani authorities declined an offer of help from China, the hungry and homeless took to the streets to demand reimbursement.

Eventually, the government compensated the aggrieved families. But 25 of them were reportedly overlooked and denied funds. Baba Jan, who is known in the G-B community for his determination to protect human rights, encouraged the local people to demand action, and was eventually thrown in jail accused of being a "terrorist."

Baba Jan and two other youth activists, Amir Khan (37), and Iftekhar Hussain (34), have been in jail since August 2011. Their arrests a year ago this month were made based on Anti Terrorism Charges brought against them for leading a mass movement across the country against the inaction of the government during the Attabad incident.

During his first private interview -- conducted in the visitors' room in Sub Jail Jutial -- Baba Jan maintained that he committed no crime when he protested against what he sees as the Government's persistent human rights abuses. "It is not ignorance anymore, it is a deliberate violation of the rights of common man. And this cruelty needs to be shattered."

Appearing noticeably malnourished, he limped back and forth in the visitor's room, enumerating the challenges that many in Gilgit have been facing for the two and a half years that have passed since the Attabad incident. The signs of torture still resident on his arms, his shaved skull, and swollen feet compelled me to interrupt him and ask about the details of his multiple jail experiences.

Nervously, he showed some of his scars. Advocate Ehsan Ali, Baba Jan's lawyer, later confirmed details of recurrent torture, including both physical and mental abuse.

"His ear lobes pulled with pliers, his body hanged upside down and beaten with wooden stick and chairs. His shoulder-length hair shaved off. And an abusive language by jailers, who'd say horrible things to mentally torture him" said Ehsan Ali.

Baba Jan said he had never imagined torture would bring him so close to death, so many times, and yet not close enough stifle his voice. He continues to raise his voice against the Government of Pakistan's failure to provide for the victims of the Attabad Lake disaster, as well as other disadvantaged segments of the population. And there have been protests on the streets of Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Peshawar to ‘Free Baba Jan.' There has even been international support for this 35-year-old senior leader of Pakistan Youth Front G-B, including a petition signed by human rights activists such as Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Sadia Toor and many more.

The text of my conversation with Baba Jan follows:

Kiran Nazish: What had happened the day you were arrested?

Baba Jan Hunzai: When a 22-year-old student, Afzal Baig was killed in front of his father, Mr. Baig [Afzal's father] protested and wailed at his innocent son's killing. The police pierced his body with a dozen bullets and killed him on the spot.

Both father and son were victims of the Attabad Lake disaster, and were peacefully protesting at a demonstration with the other victims of the lake, asking the Government to compensate them.

As we protested at KKH, and had been rallying across the country to raise awareness about the Attabad victims, the police arrested us on strict terrorism charges, including attempt of terrorism. There was a ‘criminal case' registered against me under Anti Terrorism Act (ATA).

And this is how the government treats its citizen. Most prisoners here with me in jail have done no crime except to speak. People don't speak out many times just because of fear. Why shouldn't we stand with the people who have been maltreated, beaten up and killed. This is a massacre.

KN: The police say you have been training prisoners to carry out "terrorist activity"?

BJH: Well all I have been doing is gathering the Sunni and Shia sects in the jail in a single group and making them sit and breathe with each other. I have tried to make them understand each others' problems instead of fighting based on sect. And I am glad that there are great developments in the prison now. They now indulge in long conversations with each other, which was almost an impossible thing to imagine when I had come here exactly one year ago. Some of them also share their meals with each other, which they otherwise thought of as a sin.

The police and the government have long taken advantage of the sensitive Shia-Sunni relationship in Gilgit-Baltistan. Agencies deliberately create fights among the people so that G-B stays as instable as possible.

Now that they see them living in harmony with each other in the jail, it annoys them. Anything that has to do with protest and raising one's voice becomes terrorist activity for the government. They are not ashamed of maltreating citizens in the first place, they even charge them with fake cases of terrorism and then torture them for the crime of speaking, calling them terrorists.

KN: They also say you have created a support system within the jail, which is why the JIT [Joint Investigation Team] had to relocate you several times. How many supporters do you have?

BJH: Well, firstly the JIT "abducted" my fellow inmate Iftikhar Hussain and myself on 20^th July for the same reason too. It happened many times. They move us to torture us further, whenever our fellow prisoners start supporting me. Let me assure you, they never had to relocate us because we were creating any nuisance in the prison, but because they couldn't deal with listening to our demands.

It's funny what they say each time they have to pick us up to torture us. It must really frustrate them to have us alive even after so much torture that my fellows in jail have gone through with me. I do have supporters, yes. They support my idea of speaking out against human rights abuse.

Every prisoner supports me.

KN: Have you not been organizing prison rebellions?

BJH: They don't give meals for several days. Most prisoners have their families deliver food to cook, but there are no stoves. After a week of protests by the prisoners, they provided a single stove. Then for two days there was no gas. The prisoners speak out of hunger.

Various prisoners need immediate medical attention. In spite of court orders the administration does not allow them to be treated. Nor do they provide them medicine. One of my friends here is a cancer patient and has a court order for chemotherapy, but he is denied that right too. He is literally on the ground. They don't provide beds to prisoners who are ill, not even to serious patients. Do you think witnessing all this won't outrage fellow prisoners?

KN: Some officials made visits to Gilgit, including the Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. Were these visits fruitful?

BJH: The Prime Minister's visit was interesting. It was heavily highlighted in the media and that was the only successful part of the visit; the media coverage that is. There was nothing actionable done by the government. Essentially the visit was futile since there was no public gain out of it.

KN: But didn't he give some significant donations, including the distribution of Benazir Langar (Rashan) [Langar or Rashan are relief goods. The current PPP-led Government has a name for their Rashan, called Benazir Langar, named after the late Benazir Bhutto]?

BJH: During the protests, the Red Cross and Agha Khan Foundation had set up camps and had made provisions for rashans (food and supplies) to help the victims of the Attabad Lake disaster. PM Gilani took those provisions to inaugurate the Benazir Langar, and for the photo-ops. Locals were watching and observing all this, and since protests were going on, the environment allowed them the confidence to retaliate [they felt that the redistribution of rashan was unfair, and that they should be given food and supplies separately from the Government. They "retaliated" by fighting the police with sticks and attacked police vans and other state vehicles.] The protesters included both men and women, who walked down the valley to KKH (Kara Koram Highway). They were eventually beaten up. Since journalists were equally threatened, no media outlets were able to report on this. Benazir Langar was a mere redistribution of rashans.

KN: Has reporting been fair on the series of these incidents [i.e. the Attabad incident, the government's non-response, the torturing of detained protesters in prison] so far?

BJH: That is also very interesting. There has always been lack of coverage about G-B issues, in the mainstream media. We do have a local paper that covers issues according to its own bias. The sectarian divide in G-B controls the way coverage is given to the issues of the common man.

Our own protests were not covered in the mainstream [Pakistani media], and only local and online papers like Paamir Times would give us proper reporting. That really disconnected G-B from the rest of Pakistan.

KN: What do you want the government to do?

BJH: It is very simple. The government should give the people what they deserve. Reimburse the losses they incurred due to the failure of the Government's negligent behavior. Even though some destruction had been predicted and the people were warned months prior to the land slides, the state did not take any precautionary measure.

Shahra-e-Karakoram, the road that conjoins small towns and villages to the main cities has been in-operational. Since all the banks, businesses and hospitals are only in the main cities, local citizens from these towns and villages have to face great difficulty making it through the mountains. Patients who need to get to the hospitals usually don't make it in times of emergency. The government needs to look into this.

KN: What would you do when you get out of jail?

BJH: I will continue to work for the cause of the people. I will make sure their problems are heard by the government and help them stand united against violence and neglect.

Kiran Nazish is a journalist and activist based in Pakistan.

Terrorism watchers are engaged in a heated debate about the strength of al-Qaeda, the central leadership of which is believed to be in Pakistan. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has claimed that al-Qaeda's "strategic defeat" is within reach, a message that was amplified by prominent analyst Peter Bergen's proclamation that it is time to declare victory over the group.

Though this debate is unlikely to be resolved soon, it suffers from an under-theorized argument. How resilient is a network like al-Qaeda? How much attrition can it endure? Often, claims related to such questions represent assumptions about al-Qaeda's resiliency, but lack an overarching framework. A new monograph by one of the U.S. Army's most innovative thinkers may shed light on this debate. Recently published by the Joint Special Operations University (JSOU), Lt. Col. Derek Jones's Understanding the Form, Function, and Logic of Clandestine Insurgent and Terrorist Networks is of relevance far beyond the debate about this one organization, albeit an organization that has dominated the past decade of the U.S.'s national-security priorities. Yet it is also an important read for thinkers who desire a more contextualized assessment of al-Qaeda in 2012. (Full disclosure: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross knows Lt. Col. Derek Jones personally, having first become acquainted with him at a Special Operations Command-hosted conference in the fall of 2009.)

Counter-Network Doctrine

Jones, having observed the rise of "counter-network" military theories, analyzes whether these theories correctly understand the nature of the threat posed by twenty-first century violent non-state actors-and whether counter-network operations have been as effective as many theorists believe. (For one review of counter-network theories, see this article by David Tucker.)

Given the advances in communication technology that were well underway before the 9/11 attacks, it is natural that many counter-network theorists have employed models explicitly rooted in the information age. Many theorists thought of al-Qaeda and other contemporary violent non-state actors as social networks much like those observed on the Internet.

Jones rejects the idea that the information age has caused revolutionary changes to clandestine networks. To be sure, they have evolved: al-Qaeda represents the first violent non-state actor capable of posing a truly global challenge at a strategic level to a superpower nation-state. But he points to a phenomenon that captions the way new technologies can fundamentally change groups like al-Qaeda: as networks employ such technologies more frequently, risks grow "due to the increase in electronic and cyber signatures, which puts those types of communications at risk of detection by governments." Instead, al-Qaeda employed traditional tradecraft to avoid detection: recall that the U.S. tracked down Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound by following a courier. This older tradecraft in turn "slows their rate of communication down, thus denying the information-age theorists the monolithic, information-aged, networked enemy that they have portrayed since 9/11."

If information-age theorists aren't getting it quite right, what kind of network is al-Qaeda? To answer this question, we need to understand the mechanisms by which its own theorists expect to defeat us.

Historically, the overt and visible parts of a guerrilla group are not the most important components. Instead, look to the clandestine underground. It is a well-worn adage that, by slowly eroding the opponent's will, a guerrilla network "wins by not losing."

Of course, this network doesn't require mere survival in order to win, but must also maintain the ability to mount attacks. However, as Lukas Milevski notes in a perceptive essay for the Royal United Services Journal, the network need not win outright through battles: battle avoidance can effectively deprive counterinsurgent forces of the control they desire. Hence the truth behind the observation that the United States won all of the battles in Vietnam but lost the war. If a military power cannot use battle to annihilate an adversary, nor push the cost of war beyond what its irregular adversary can afford, it cannot gain strategic control over an important territory or outcome. But to outlast a superior foe, the irregular enemy must first minimize its vulnerabilities to attrition.

Unfortunately for us, al-Qaeda long ago understood how to lessen its organizational signature.                                                                                                 

The Anti-Social Network

Jones argues that al-Qaeda and similar groups are clandestine cellular networks, rather than information-age social networks. They are clandestine in that they are designed to be out of sight; and they are cellular in that they are compartmentalized to minimize damage when enemy neutralizes some portion of the network.

Social networks are open, and expand by multiplying their connections. They use open tools, and have small transaction costs. Occupy Wall Street, for example, used social media extensively to build a network stretching across many cities. While connection is beneficial for an open political movement, it can be fatal to a terrorist group. So a clandestine network functions radically differently from a social network. We use Facebook to make ourselves more connected, but al-Qaeda's network survives by limiting connections and compartmentalizing information.

Compartmentalization takes two forms. First, at a cell level, a minimum of personal information is known about other cell members. Second, there is strategic compartmentalization between different elements within the organization. Counterinsurgents can capture one person in a cell without destroying the cell itself; and in cases where cell members must interact directly, structural compartmentalization attempts to ensure that the cell cannot be exploited to target other cells or leaders.

The U.S. Army's Special Operations Forces doctrine recognizes three components of an insurgency: the auxiliary, the underground, and the guerrillas. The guerrillas are the fighters. The underground is responsible for command and control, logistics, subversion, and intelligence. The auxiliary is "the clandestine support personnel, directed by the underground which provides logistics, operational support, and intelligence collection to both the underground and the guerrillas."

If insurgencies grow to the point that they are "near-peer competitors to the state," they begin to take on characteristics of a conventional force. Secrecy is traded for efficiency, and building networks rather than cells becomes important. But should insurgencies suffer defeat at this stage, their hidden component-the underground-is designed to survive and regenerate the network.

While al-Qaeda aspires to being a near-peer competitor to the nation-state, it has only reached this point in a few theaters where multiple challenges confront the traditional government. In the vast majority of places where the jihadi group has a presence, it operates as a network of compartmentalized cells.

Such networks are largely decentralized at the tactical level, but have more hierarchical control at the strategic level. The core leadership may be an individual, with numerous deputies, or it may be a coordinating committee. But without centralized control, the network cannot effectively develop a strategy for action. The network's leadership can replace members of the tactical cells easily, but it is harder to replace core members. However, a strong network will ensure redundancy in key areas, so that the group remains viable even if its leaders are captured or killed.

Mistaking Appearances for Reality

Jones writes that counterinsurgents routinely mistake the more overt parts of an insurgency-which can be easily replaced-for the clandestine cells that generate them. But some of the seemingly spontaneously generating cells may say less about the supposedly decentralized nature of a network than it does about the clandestine leadership's ability to hold itself out of view and recover from seemingly fatal reverses.

The more contact that cells have with counterinsurgents and counterterrorists, the more adept they are at defeating interrogation procedures, protecting their own information, and feeding false information to their enemies. Survival creates a Darwinian cycle in which the core members of an insurgency can adapt, learn, and advance.

If there is one weakness in Jones's study, it is, as he acknowledges, that it is based largely on Cold War insurgencies and newer insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. From these we can draw inferences about the covert dynamics of al-Qaeda and other Islamist cells outside of war zones-but more study remains to be done.

Overall, though, this is an extremely valuable study. Its most troubling implication is that al-Qaeda may be well positioned to recover from its losses. As Jones argues, the form, function, and logic of this organization are designed to maximize its chances of survival, and thus "the removal of single individuals, regardless of function, is well within the tolerance of this type of organizational structure and thus has little long-term effect." This point is almost certainly overstated as applied to leaders like bin Laden or effective ideologues like Anwar al-Awlaki. Nonetheless, the powerful point remains that the logic of organizations like al-Qaeda is such that their ability to recover from leadership and other losses is maximized.

Is al-Qaeda's network core still intact? Most specialists would answer yes. If they are right, al-Qaeda may be able to opportunistically re-grow new cells when it is safe, or when public opinion is more favorable.

Most crystal balls are disturbingly cloudy, and only time will tell how well Jones's study predicts the course that the admittedly weakened core of al-Qaeda will chart. However, Jones offers a persuasive framework for approaching the issue. He thus raises a significant challenge to those arguing that al-Qaeda has been defeated, and offers great insight to others studying twenty-first century violent non-state actors.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Ph.D. candidate in world politics at the Catholic University of America, and the author of eleven books and monographs, including Bin Laden's Legacy. Adam Elkus is a Ph.D. student at American University in the School of International Service and an editor at the Red Team Journal. He is also an Associate at the Small Wars Journal's El Centro profile, and blogs at Rethinking Security.

When Zabiuddin Ansari was handed over to the Indian authorities several weeks ago, it was big news - at least in India - as a result of the information he was expected to provide to the authorities there about the 2008 Mumbai attacks. As previous posts have illustrated, his story also provided valuable insights into the nature of the jihadist threat to India, the state of India-Pakistan relations, and the importance of international counterterrorism cooperation to contain the threats posed by Pakistan-based and supported militants. The most important angle according to some observers, however, was the fact that Ansari was arrested by the Saudi authorities, who subsequently handed him over to India despite Riyadh's historically close alliance with Islamabad. While at first glance this could suggest a wider geopolitical realignment, the reality is more nuanced. Though Pakistan is in no danger of being completely abandoned, its continued tolerance of militant groups makes even its staunchest allies skittish.

Pakistan remains the only nuclear-armed Muslim nation and, crucially, it's a Sunni Muslim nation, which makes it an essential Saudi ally in the event that Shi'a Iran acquires a nuclear capacity. Furthermore, the Saudi royal family has depended directly on the Pakistan Army for protection at times and Pakistani soldiers continue to play an important role in Saudi Arabia. It's very difficult to imagine India supplanting Pakistan in these areas. Saudi engagement with India began as part of a wider endeavor in which it sought to develop new markets for oil, expand economically where possible, and forge stronger political ties in Asia to augment the traditional U.S.-Saudi relationship and balance against Iran. However, it would be naïve to think India is ready to line up in lock-step against Iran any more than Saudi Arabia is prepared to abandon its alliance with Pakistan.

Nevertheless, Riyadh's decision to hand over Ansari despite his possessing a Pakistan passport and over the vociferous objections of the Pakistani authorities is a significant event and indicative of several important trends. First, it marked an important turning point in Saudi-India counterterrorism cooperation that could only have occurred amidst improved bilateral ties between the two countries. Second, it suggests increasing concerns within the Kingdom about Pakistani militants in general and Lashkar-e-Taiba specifically, as well as Pakistan's ability to control them. This is related to a more troubling trend for Pakistan in which its continued support for militant proxies has put strains on relationships with even its closest allies who fear the repercussions for their own internal security.

Playing the Field

In January 2006, Saudi king Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud visited India as part of a four-country tour that also included a stop in Beijing. This was the first visit to India by a Saudi king since 1955, after which bilateral relations quickly froze as a result of Cold War politics. At the time of the landmark 2006 visit, Saudi Arabia provided only a trickle of oil to India, but soon after became its number one crude oil source. Although oil remains the lifeline of the relationship, the two countries' interests now extend beyond black gold. Trade between them has boomed, as have Indian investments in Saudi Arabia, where more than 1 million Indians work, making them the biggest expatriate community in the Kingdom. There is significant cultural exchange as well owing largely to the fact that India has the second-largest Muslim population in the world, many of who are interested in Saudi Arabia as the host of Islam's two holiest sites.

The Delhi Declaration signed during King Saud's visit heralded a "new era in India-Saudi relations" in which both countries would develop a broad strategic vision. As such, it served as a major building block for the relationship, which has since expanded to include notable security-related issues. In 2006 the two leaders initially intended to sign a mutual legal assistance treaty pertaining to criminal matters, which often serves as a precursor to an extradition treaty. Instead, they signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Combating Crime designed to deal with terrorism and transnational crime. Although it appeared comprehensive on paper and covered a range of issues, perceptual disagreements over the concept of terrorism meant that in reality there would be limited cooperation.

By 2010, when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Saudi Arabia, bilateral relations had improved significantly. Prime Minister Singh and King Saud signed the Riyadh Declaration, which set the stage for actual counterterrorism cooperation, as well as signing a separate extradition treaty. Earlier this year the two countries boosted defense ties and further deepened counterterrorism cooperation when Indian Defense Minister AK Antony visited the Kingdom. According to Indian officials, Saudi cooperation on counterterrorism issues has improved significantly in the past six months. By this time, Saudi officials had already had Zabiuddin Ansari in custody for more than half a year.

Ansari traveled to Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport in the name of Riyasat Ali to launch a recruitment campaign for future attacks against India. As detailed in the previous post, India-U.S. counterterrorism coordination appears to have enabled Ansari's identification and ultimately led to his arrest by Saudi authorities in May 2011. However, Riyadh was reluctant to hand him over to India for fear of upsetting Pakistan, where officials surely recognized the damage he could cause in the court of public opinion. In the past, any suspected militant traveling on a Pakistani passport would be sent back to Pakistan. In this instance, Pakistani pressure to reclaim custody of Ansari appears to have been intense, but so too was Indian and American pressure to secure his handover.

Riyadh ultimately demanded a DNA profile and other evidence from India to establish Ansari's Indian nationality. New Delhi was able to fulfill these requirements, but Pakistan could not show credible proof that Ansari was one of its own. The ability to make a strong legal case for handing him over and improved bilateral ties between Riyadh and New Delhi were undoubtedly important factors. But baser security concerns likely also were at play.

Running Hot and Cold

Saudi Arabia proved a reluctant contributor to the international effort against al-Qaeda and associated movements after 9/11. This remained the case until the Kingdom suffered directly from al-Qaeda attacks beginning in 2003. However, it remained relatively tolerant of Lashkar-e-Taiba. This owed to Saudi Arabia's relationship with Pakistan, but also resulted from Lashkar's position vis-à-vis the Kingdom.

Some Lashkar leaders have ties to Saudi Arabia dating back several decades, and these men often view Saudi Arabia as the best Islamic state, even if it is not an ideal one. In other words, their attachment to the Kingdom extends beyond its mere utility as a fundraising and support base for militant activity. Similarly, Lashkar leaders' strong commitment to spreading Ahl-e-Hadith (or Salafi) Islam via non-violent activism and their decision to eschew revolutionary terrorism in favor of pan-Islamist jihad makes the group more palatable than al-Qaeda to the Saudi state. Several Lashkar watchers, including this author, have speculated that the group distanced itself from al-Qaeda circa 2003 as a result not only of pressure from Islamabad, but also Riyadh.

Lashkar's relationship with al-Qaeda - the Central organization and its affiliate in the Arabian Peninsula - remains a dynamic one, but interlocutors in Pakistan and the United States have told the author that cooperation between the two has increased of late. Meanwhile, the wider narrative generated by the 2008 Mumbai attacks is that Lashkar is becoming a global threat. Regardless of whether one agrees with this assessment, it would be surprising if American and Indian officials did not make the case that an overly permissive environment could spell trouble for Saudi Arabia, and not too difficult to imagine their counterparts in Riyadh entertaining the notion seriously. Acute concerns about Lashkar exist against the backdrop of Pakistan's unwillingness or inability to reign in the group or others like it as well as growing disquiet over possible jihadist influences on elements within the Pakistan Army.

Putting Ansari in Perspective

Saudi Arabia broke a taboo when it handed over Zabiuddin Ansari and, as should be evident, this has significant implications. Saudi authorities are holding additional Indian militants, and they're willingness to deport these men will be an important means of gauging the constancy of the trends highlighted in this post. However, it must be noted that all of these men are Indian - Riyadh is yet to begin evicting Pakistani operatives, much less arresting and deporting them to India. In short, this hardly spells the end of Lashkar operations in the Kingdom, though as the previous post observed the terrain there has become somewhat less hospitable.

In the zero-sum world of India-Pakistan relations, Ansari's handover was an unquestionable win for New Delhi. In addition to the intelligence gleaned and validation offered regarding the 2008 Mumbai attacks, India also scored a diplomatic victory, albeit with U.S. support. Amidst the focus on signals intercepts and direct action, U.S. diplomatic engagement is often overlooked. In this instance, Indian officials have confirmed it was critical to securing a favorable outcome.

Finally, this event should cause concern in Islamabad and Rawalpindi about the degree to which continued tolerance of groups like Lashkar is creating unease among even its closest allies. China too has evinced concern - rarely and diplomatically, but nevertheless publicly - about the potential for Pakistan-based militants to threaten its own internal security. Saudi Arabia has now gone a significant step further. Neither country is about to abandon Pakistan, but nor is their commitment to Pakistan as absolute as some of its leaders might publicly claim or privately wish to believe.

Stephen Tankel is an assistant professor at American University and a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He recently returned from an extended research trip to South Asia examining internal security issues and is spending the summer at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars as a public policy scholar.

Pakistan's Deputy Attorney General Khurshid Khan has made news and not everyone is happy about it.

DAG Khurshid Khan became embroiled in controversy when, deeply shaken by the beheading of a Sikh man by the Taliban in Pakistan in 2010, he decided to seek atonement for the sins of the Taliban by cleaning the shoes of Sikh worshippers outside shrines in India and Pakistan. While Sikh leaders and organizations have praised DAG Khan for his actions, Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association did not take such a kindly view of the situation, and issued DAG Khan a show-cause notice asking him to explain his actions. The Bar Association has argued that DAG Khan's actions "defamed" the country, while DAG Khan insists that his actions were only meant to present his religion and country in a positive light, by showing that the Taliban do not represent the views of the whole country. 

This is not the first time that Pakistani officials, worried about the country's image in the world, have taken measures to protect that image. One stark example of this was then-President Pervez Musharraf's treatment of Mukhtar Mai, a woman gang-raped in her village Meerwala and subsequently prevented from leaving the country for fear that she would publicize stories of her rape and damage Pakistan's image abroad. Echoing government claims, some journalists at the time also termed Mai's heart-wrenching accounts of her rape as "propaganda against Pakistan." General Musharraf eventually allowed Mai to travel abroad, but only after intense domestic and international pressure.   

While Mukhtar Mai's case is an extreme example of an incredibly misguided attempt to protect Pakistan's image abroad, it aptly illustrates how censuring its citizens may not be Pakistan's best shot at protecting its image. DAG Khurshid Khan's case may raise valid questions about the code of conduct appropriate for government officials, but it remains questionable whether the SCBA is doing the country's image any good by taking action against someone who did, at the end of the day, want to show that Pakistanis stand against terrorism, and empathize with the sufferings of Pakistan's religious minorities. Through his service to the Sikh community, DAG Khan only sought to encourage a form of communication between Pakistan's majority Muslim population and other religious communities, an effort that the Bar Association has attempted to halt.

Most strikingly, such efforts to protect Pakistan's image seem bizarre in light of the glaring fact that much of the negative opinion about Pakistan around the world stems from some very real challenges that Pakistan faces: international and domestic terrorism, corruption, poor governance, and human rights violations. Government officials not only unwittingly reinforced these negative perceptions about Pakistan in both the cases of Mukhtar Mai and of DAG Khan, but also completely failed to acknowledge the larger, more significant reasons for the country's negative perception in the world.

If the first step to recovery is admitting there is a problem, Pakistan has yet to really take that step. Pakistani officials and media frequently blame outside forces for Pakistan's misfortunes. Yet, it is crucial for Pakistan to acknowledge the faults and mistakes that have led it to its current quagmire if it is to improve its image. The slow response of the international community to the 2010 floods in Pakistan, partly attributed to Pakistan's negative image in the world, was a tragic reminder that a country's image matters immensely. Recognizing the importance of the way the world sees a nation, Pakistan spends a $100,000 dollars per month, a total of about $1.2 million dollars a year, on American lobbying firms to help improve its image in the United States. Yet, according to a recent BBC poll, it remains one of the most negatively viewed countries in the world, second only to Iran.

Pakistan's failure to improve its image does not only lie in its inability to accept responsibility for and address its problems. Pakistan has also failed to effectively use channels of communication with the outside world, such as movies, literature, art and music, to show a perspective on Pakistan that more closely reflects the way in which Pakistani citizens experience their country. Experiences of painful uncertainty and horror in the face of terrorism, violence, corruption, and state incompetence comingle with very "normal" day-to-day experiences to form a nuanced image of Pakistan in the minds of its citizens. These complicated experiences can best and most eloquently be portrayed through movies, art, literature and music, providing a window into Pakistan to outsiders who may see the country only through a security lens.

Yet the arts are not the only means through which Pakistan can challenge the narrow, security-focused narrative about the country. Allowing Pakistani citizens the freedom to broadcast their experiences to the world, even negative ones, is important in not only encouraging the process of self-reflection but also in allowing outsiders to understand the range of different life-experiences that shape the human landscape of Pakistan. At the very least, a greater understanding of the region will allow the international community to move past black and white generalizations about the "Pakistan problem" and to appreciate the nuances that underpin issues confronting the region. In the long run, this will translate into a more empathetic view of Pakistan, and might help the country's image in the world.

In fact, Pakistan's neighbor, India, has done an excellent job of exploiting such channels of communication to give the world a glimpse into the various facets of life in India. The Indian film industry produces the largest number of movies in the world, with export revenues increasing drastically over the years. The Economist points out the wide influence of Indian movies which are popular not only in countries like the United States, but also in other parts of the world, such as Japan. Anyone who has seen Bollywood films knows how impressive a job it does of portraying different "Indias" - the romanticized India of dancing and singing locals, but also the more somber and serious India of movies like "Rang de Basanti" that explore India's past. India's effective use of these modes of communication is undoubtedly one of the reasons it has maintained a positive image in the world.

Clearly, there are also other reasons for India's pleasant appearance. India has more going for it than Pakistan does, given that India is the world's largest democracy and a rising economic power. On top of that, India is one of the most diverse countries in the world, with hundreds of different languages spoken across the country. Moreover, unlike Pakistan, India's domestic problems have not also posed a threat to countries around the world. All these factors allow India to maintain a positive image, despite the fact that India also shares many of the problems of other developing countries, such as corruption, poor governance, massive poverty and domestic terrorism in the form of a Naxalite-Maoist insurgency. India not only has achievements, it has also managed to capitalize on these achievements through the use of various modes of communication with the rest of the world.

While a country's real problems and achievements essentially define its image in the world, to some extent, image is also a product of what the world even knows about a country. The censorship of both DAG Khan and Mukhtar Mai, although misguided and counter-productive, illustrates Pakistan's attempts to control what the world knows about it. Instead of censuring DAG Khan, Pakistani officials could have used DAG Khan's case as a way to show their stance against terrorism and their empathy for the sufferings of Pakistan's minorities. There is hardly a Pakistani, however removed from Pakistan's troubled tribal areas, who has not felt the consequences in some shape or form of Pakistan's battle against terrorism, and there are many who have suffered the direct destruction and pain that terrorism has brought on the country. It is this pain and sense of loss that DAG Khan sought to express through his service to a religious community that has also suffered at the hands of terrorism. Pakistani officials should celebrate such actions, and see them as a means through which to open channels of communication with other communities and countries. Ultimately, it is the DAG Khans of Pakistan that will help its image.

Fatima Mustafa is a PhD candidate at Boston University researching issues of state-building in the developing world.

On Monday, the New York Times wrote about an unreleased report by the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission mapping human rights abuses from 1978 until 2001. Spanning the two bloody decades in which Afghanistan oscillated from Russian occupation and violent resistance, to all-out civil war in the early 1990s, to oppressive Taliban rule, the report documents tens of thousands of deaths, torture and other extreme abuses, including evidence of 180 mass graves. Although many of these abuses are well known, what has caused the biggest controversy, and the reason the report is still unpublished, the Times reports, is that many of the perpetrators are members of the current government or are local powerbrokers who still hold sway over key regions and provinces in Afghanistan.

Many of these incidents (the Dasht-e-Laili massacre of 2,000 Taliban prisoners; massacres of Hazara populations in Bamiyan during the Taliban era; the 1993 Afshar massacre by mujahedeen leaders) have been documented by other groups, but this report appears is of a different scale and level of detail. It is certainly the most comprehensive reporting on past abuses to date, and with more forensic and investigative resources, likely more rigorous. It also holds the greatest promise for energizing a more balanced and holistic debate about how Afghanistan might address this horrific past. Whereas past transitional justice projects have been criticized for singling out certain warlords or ethnic groups, this mapping illustrates how widespread the violence was. Victims and culprits can be found in every ethnic group, every region, every pocket of Afghan society. This report might be used as a springboard for a national discussion about how to move beyond finger-pointing and allow recognition of past abuses to be a part of more meaningful national reconciliation.

If it ever comes out that is.  Previous high-level efforts to get traction on transitional justice issues have been squashed due to political pressure. For example, a 2005 United Nations mapping report that documented past cycles of violence and conflict and tied specific abuses to perpetrators was never released officially (though it has been leaked). Similarly, much controversy has surrounded the release of the AIHRC mapping report. Originally commissioned in 2005, human rights advocates have been preparing for an imminent release for several years but publication has been repeatedly delayed, in part due to technical issues and follow-up research, but also because of political pressure from the Afghan government, the Times reports. Most recently, when the Afghan government learned of the report's imminent release, the lead Commissioner in charge, Nader Nadery, was fired - many believe in order to prevent the report's release.

Nor is the Afghan government the only player to question if the report should be released. A U.S. official quoted in the piece argued the report should not be published, at least until after Afghanistan's 2014 presidential election "There will be a time for it, but I'm not persuaded this is the time. ...It's going to reopen all the old wounds."

This is a refrain that human rights advocates have heard time and again. While there has been much lip-service to supporting transitional justice, it has always been de-prioritized versus other political and security concerns. With a new election cycle, a new stabilization initiative, prospective reconciliation talks, or simply flowering insecurity always on the horizon, there has never been a "right" time for such a discussion. And in the meantime the rancor caused by impunity continues to erode confidence in the Afghan government and the rule of law, and the abuses of past years seem ever more likely to repeat themselves. This was never truer than it is now, as the looming 2014 elections and withdrawal of international combat troops have prompted many of the same perpetrators of past abuses to re-arm in preparation for a potential new era of violence.

Not only would it be important for such a report to come out now, so that there is at least a chance that such concerns will be discussed during this critical transition period, but it would be a serious setback if the report succumbed to political pressure and was not published at all. Already there are troubling signs that the space to publish critical thought in Afghanistan is getting worse, not better over time. In post-2001 Afghanistan, one of the few unequivocal successes has been the growth and freedom of the media. Afghan journalists, researchers and analysts have consistently been at the forefront of a surging new civil society, asking challenging questions and providing one of the few real checks and balances to government actions. Supported by foreign aid donors, and unrestrained by a Karzai administration that for most of the last 10 years has tolerated criticism, Afghans have enjoyed greater freedom of speech and association than anywhere else in the region.

However, there are signs that space is shrinking. Afghan journalists and stringers have been reporting greater harassment - in some cases leading to physical abuse - at a local level. New procedures have also been instituted that limit NGO activities or research organizations. When I was in Afghanistan earlier this month, we had to seek permission from several, overlapping ministries in Kabul to do even the most basic research or events in the provinces. Given this overall climate, the perception that the AIHRC report is hushed up would send a powerful signal to Afghan media and civil society: If a report of this magnitude and importance cannot be published, then what can?

The fact that such a report could even be produced shows how far Afghanistan has come in the last 10 years. Now, the way the report is treated is an important litmus test of how many of those gains will be preserved following transition. Publishing this report would not, of course, resolve all the underlying political issues. And while not a given, the Afghan government may fear it would put many of its key allies and partners at risk of prosecution (although the Amnesty law likely would prevent that) or disqualification from upcoming elections. However, ignoring this issue for so many years has created much larger consequences that might be better addressed in this transition period than left to fester. The Afghan government has a credibility problem both with the Afghan public and with the international community (whom it relies upon for continued aid). Past efforts to ignore these issues has to widespread, popular disillusionment with the Afghan government, undermining efforts on stabilization, rule of law development, and reconciliation.  If the Afghan government embraced this report (which it originally commissioned) as an opportunity to begin a national conversation on these issues, it might be a concrete way to show the Afghan population and international donors that it meant all of the commitments about reforming government institutions and protecting rights that it made at events like the recent Tokyo conference. It would show that while there are many challenges on the horizon, Afghanistan's leaders and political system have moved beyond where it was in the 1980s and 1990s. There has never been a more critical time for such a statement.

Erica Gaston is a Senior Program Officer on Rule of Law in Afghanistan at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

This is the third in a series of four posts examining the lessons and implications drawn from the arrest of Zabiuddin Ansari, who played a key role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The first examined the variegated nature of the jihadist threat confronting India today. The second explored the impact of Ansari's revelations regarding the persistence of that threat as well as his affirmation of Indian allegations regarding the Mumbai attacks on the renewed India-Pakistan engagement.

As previous posts made clear, Zabiuddin Ansari is likely providing Indian authorities with all manner of information, which will be picked over and analyzed during the coming months. One fact is immediately clear, however, and that is the Pakistan security establishment remains unwilling to end its support for non-state proxies. In the absence of a policy that succeeds in convincing, cajoling or compelling Pakistan to change its behavior, it has become essential to devise mechanisms to mitigate the external threats from Pakistan-based and Pakistan-supported militants. Even if Pakistan were to make an unambiguous effort to dismantle the militant infrastructure on its soil, such mechanisms would still be necessary in the near term. While a host of states have pursued unilateral measures, calls for international cooperation to manage these threats have also increased. Ansari's story illustrates the importance of this cooperation as well as its limits.

The U.S.-India Joint Working Group on Counterterrorism is more than a decade old, but counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries really accelerated after the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The U.S. government only began paying greater attention to Lashkar and its Indian affiliates in the wake of those attacks, while American forensic assistance to India in building a strong case that they were planned in Pakistan catalyzed a willingness in New Delhi to work more closely with Washington. In addition to infusing the U.S.-India Joint Working Group on Counterterrorism with new life, the two countries also launched a Homeland Security Dialogue Ministerial in May 2011. Although ample room still exists for improvement, officials in both countries agree that cooperation has increased during the last few years.

Crucially, in the last several years, the United States, India, and the United Kingdom all took steps to facilitate counterterrorism efforts in Bangladesh. Lashkar has networks throughout South Asia and stretching into East Asia, but Bangladesh has historically been the most important staging ground for attacks against India. The group began building up its networks there in the mid-1990s, and Indian operatives played an important role in this effort from the outset. The growth of the indigenous Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) provided another mechanism for supporting attacks in India, which other Pakistan-based groups (including the original HuJI) could attempt to leverage for this purpose as well. Even more important than its role as a staging point for attacks, Bangladesh became an important place of refuge for Indian operatives as well as a transit point to and from Pakistan for men, material, and money. Ansari was among those who took advantage of its role in this regard, fleeing to Bangladesh in 2006 before ultimately moving on to Pakistan.

Since the mid-1990s, control of the government in Dhaka has alternated between the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, with a military caretaker government in place from late 2006 through early 2009. The Awami League historically has been friendlier to India and less tolerant of Islamist-cum-jihadist actors than the BNP, but at different times both parties have been guilty of turning a blind eye to jihadist activities aimed at India.

Bangladeshi authorities began cracking down on domestic jihadists like HuJI-B after 2005 when some of them launched a series of bomb blasts across the country. In 2008, the Awami League won a landslide election in which it campaigned on closer ties with India and a promised crackdown on Islamist militancy. Meanwhile, New Delhi was reaching out to improve relations with Dhaka, while the United States offered valuable military and counterterrorism assistance as part of its push to degrade jihadist networks in South Asia. In 2009-2010, Bangladesh counterterrorism efforts expanded to include foreign elements as well. Indian, Bangladeshi, British, and American interlocutors with whom the author met during a recent visit to Dhaka all stressed that since 2010 Bangladesh has become less hospitable terrain. Officials from India and Bangladesh also agreed that counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries coupled with U.S. assistance contributed to this improvement, a view shared by independent experts.

The Persian Gulf, however, has remained fertile soil in terms of a support base for South Asian militancy. U.S. counterterrorism efforts vis-à-vis the Gulf have focused primarily on terrorist threat financing, which is understandable given that a host of jihadist groups rely heavily on fundraising networks there. What is often overlooked is the role the Gulf can play as a logistical and recruitment hub; for Lashkar, its Indian affiliates, and other Pakistan-based groups interested in launching attacks against India. For these reasons, this author has maintained that in terms of containing and degrading the threat from South Asian militancy, particularly Lashkar and its Indian affiliates, greater focus needs to be given to monitoring and infiltrating Gulf-based networks that could be used to recruit operatives or provide logistical support for terrorist attacks.

Recruitment efforts typically focus on Indian Muslims working in the region as part of a diaspora presence that numbers over 1 million. The presence of a Pakistani diaspora, coupled with the large number of South Asians who travel annually to Saudi Arabia for legitimate religious purposes, enables militants to blend in with the masses and makes the Gulf an opportune place for operatives to meet. Several Pakistan-based militant groups have ties with Saudi Arabia dating back to the 1980s, while the Indian crime boss-cum-terrorist Dawood Ibrahim, currently sheltering in Pakistan, has provided access to additional networks in places such as the United Arab Emirates. Finally, Riyadh's close relationship with Islamabad meant that anyone found engaging in militant activities was simply sent back to Pakistan provided he was traveling on a Pakistani passport. That is, until Zabiuddin Ansari's arrest in May 2011.

Ansari's arrest and subsequent deportation is an example of how such cooperation should work and the impact it can have. As typically is the case, the details of precisely how Ansari's presence was detected in Saudi Arabia are somewhat opaque. It appears he used an alias known to Indian intelligence to set up a website to inveigle new recruits, but according to Indian officials with whom the author spoke, it was U.S. intelligence that initially zoomed in on him. If so, this suggests that information sharing between the two countries coupled with U.S. capabilities to monitor Internet traffic led to his identification. It is clear that once Ansari's identity was confirmed, the United States asked Saudi authorities to detain him, and then worked in tandem with their Indian counterparts to ensure he was not returned to Pakistan despite carrying a passport from that country. It was more than a year before Ansari was turned over to the Indian authorities.

Saudi Arabia's willingness to deport Ansari to India came despite significant Pakistani protestations - a decision which will be explored in the final post of this series. Three points are important here. First, to reiterate, Ansari's identification, arrest and subsequent deportation to India were the result of greater international counterterrorism cooperation. Second, Ansari appears to be providing Indian authorities with a trove of intelligence about Lashkar and IM operations in Pakistan, India, and possibly the Gulf, which they have pledged to share with the United States This is likely to enable additional monitoring and infiltration of Lashkar and IM networks as well as assisting ongoing investigations. Third, the fact that the Gulf is no longer a guaranteed safe space for operations could have an impact on how militants conduct activities there.

None of this spells the end of the threat posed by Lashkar, the Indian Mujahideen, or other militants based in Pakistan. Bangladesh is a far less viable logistical hub than in the past, but gains there are reversible without continued vigilance. Further, although Ansari's arrest and deportation is significant, the Gulf has not suddenly become a no-go area. Finally, international cooperation is primarily a means of threat containment and mitigation. It is no substitute for action in Pakistan. Such a policy shift is unlikely in the near term, but in addition to reducing the efficacy of Pakistan-based or supported militants, international cooperation should send a message to Pakistan that it risks inviting further isolation.

Stephen Tankel is an assistant professor at American University and a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He recently returned from an extended research trip to South Asia examining internal security issues and is spending the summer at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars as a public policy scholar.

Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst and the editor of the AfPak Channel, sat down with Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a senior correspondent and associate editor at the Washington Post, to talk about his new book Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan. Listen here as they discuss whether the American surge strategy worked, the factors hampering Afghanistan's development, Richard Holbrooke's impact on peace talks with the Taliban, and the state of those talks today.

This video was originally published by the New America Foundation here.

During the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which Pakistan-based handlers from Lashkar-e-Taiba provided instructions via voice-over-internet protocol communications, Indian intelligence heard an individual speaking with a Mumbai accent directing some of the gunmen on the ground.  Last year that same voice was heard again - this time in Saudi Arabia. It belongs to Zabiuddin Ansari (a.k.a. Abu Jundal, a.k.a. Abu Hamza) who Saudi forces arrested in May 2011 and finally turned over to the Indian authorities two weeks ago.

Ansari is proving to be a treasure trove of information regarding past attacks against India, most notably the 10-person assault on Mumbai for which he also helped to prepare the attackers. This understandably has been big news in India, as has Ansari's connections to the Indian Mujahideen network that has claimed a slew of bombings since 2005. However, his story, which began in a small village in Maharashtra's Beed district and reached a crescendo with his arrest by Saudi authorities and subsequent deportation to India, despite significant Pakistani protestations, has wider implications.

To begin with, this development comes amidst a warming in India-Pakistan relations. Early indications suggest that New Delhi will leverage information from Ansari's arrest to pressure Pakistan, albeit with minimal expectations of a positive result. However, the Indian government appears intent that the fallout should not stand in the way of progress on issues such as economic integration, even as territorial disputes and Pakistani support for militancy help keep full normalization out of reach. While it is unclear how long such an approach can last, it is notable that this thaw has been accompanied by intensified counterterrorism cooperation with the United States and various regional actors. Indeed, the most significant aspect of Ansari's arrest and deportation may be that it came at the hands of one of Pakistan's most reliable allies, Saudi Arabia. Such cooperation is intrinsically connected to Pakistan's increasing isolation at a time when India is an emerging global player with growing clout.

Thus, Ansari's arrest provides a prism through which to examine several inter-related issues: the variegated nature of the jihadist threat confronting India today, and the roles that both a small number of Indians and Pakistani state support play in it; how incidents such as this one impact the renewed India-Pakistan engagement; the feasibility of containing Pakistan-based or supported militants via enhanced international counter-terrorism cooperation in the absence of a serious commitment by the Pakistani state to dismantle the jihadist infrastructure on its soil; and Pakistan's increasing international isolation, primarily as a result of growing concerns about its inability or unwillingness to dismantle that infrastructure. This is the first of four articles intended to address these issues and it aims to contextualize the jihadist threat facing India today.

The full story behind Ansari's entrance into militancy is still obscure, but in the words of one Indian journalist, "it is likely that part of the answer lies in the communal violence which formed an organic part of the cultural fabric of his early life." Thus it appears he was part of a small number, in relative and absolute terms, of Indian Muslims motivated to wage jihad against their homeland as a means of exacting revenge for socio-economic deprivation and communal pogroms perpetrated by elements of the Hindu majority.

Some of these would-be Indian militants linked up directly with Pakistani groups like Lashkar, while others began joining India-based cells that simply benefited from Pakistani support. Since 2007, these Indian modules have been known as the Indian Mujahideen, which is best understood as a label for a diffuse and protean network rather than as a proper organization. While one can distinguish between Indians who join Lashkar and those that belong to an IM-branded module, in practice there is significant interplay between the two. Most of the jihadist attacks against India in recent years have been executed either by Indians working directly for Lashkar, those belonging to the IM, or a hybrid of the two. Incidents of expeditionary terrorism, in which Pakistan-based groups like Lashkar deploy Pakistanis to execute terrorist strikes such as the 2008 Mumbai attacks, may be the highest profile threat to India. But these attacks are also the most rare.

There are several reasons for this. First, in some cases Indians may be acting almost entirely on their own, albeit possibly with some form of foreign support, which means they strike when the opportunity presents itself. Second, in those instances when they are working with Pakistan-based actors, Indian operatives are able to move more freely than their Pakistani brethren and so provide greater operational utility. Third, interlocutors in the U.S. and Indian governments believe the ISI is putting pressure on Lashkar to refrain from deploying Pakistani operatives, particularly since the international opprobrium that followed Mumbai. Fourth, according to one Lashkar official interviewed by the author in Pakistan in July 2011, a growing number of Indian Muslims are assuming operational roles in the group, enabling greater collaboration with indigenous actors in India. Hence, it is not surprising that Ansari was arrested in Saudi Arabia, where more than a million members of the Indian diaspora live, while on a mission to recruit more of his countrymen for future attacks.

The domestic grievances motivating would-be Indian militants pose difficult questions for India. However, it is impossible to overlook Pakistan's role in promoting and sustaining these actors. Indian authorities assert that ISI support for Indian militants includes the provision of training, financing, explosives, and logistical support such as false passports like the one Ansari was carrying when arrested. It also entails providing safe haven for Indian operatives, again like Ansari, who fled to Pakistan via Bangladesh in 2006 and allegedly confirmed that others like him are still sheltering in Karachi and continuing to plan terrorist operations.

Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram, among others, has admitted the country can no longer point to cross-border modules as the source of all jihadist violence in India, and must acknowledge the role a small number of its own citizens play. Yet India also points to Pakistan's continued support for these actors and assert that its willingness to provide safe haven to some of them enables the ISI to exert direct influence over the Indian Mujahideen. Thus, Chidambaram admitted Ansari was an Indian radicalized in India, but also called on Pakistan to admit he was given safe haven there and played a key role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Notably, Ansari claims his initial task was to provide Hindi lessons to the Mumbai assault team in order to pass off the operation as the work of Indian jihadists.

True or false, this allegation contributes to the belief among many Indian officials and analysts that Lashkar and its ISI patrons are cultivating Indian operatives in part because they provide a greater level of deniability for Pakistan. It also helps to explain why many Indian officials with whom the author spoke during the past several weeks make only a minimal distinction between the IM and Lashkar, viewing both as tools of the Pakistani state. Ansari's revelations regarding the involvement of officers allegedly working with the ISI in the planning and execution of the 2008 Mumbai attacks have reinforced this perception. Yet contrary to the evidence, Pakistani officials insists no state actors - rogue or otherwise - were involved in Mumbai and that such accusations are designed to malign the ISI.

India has stated publicly that Pakistani action against all of the Mumbai perpetrators would be the greatest confidence-building measure, but when the author spoke with high-ranking officials in New Delhi following Ansari's arrest, none expressed any hope that such action would be forthcoming. Such low expectations did not keep the argument over Ansari and the information he has provided from overshadowing other bilateral issues when foreign secretaries from the two countries met several days prior. Still, despite the Ansari issue clouding the talks, the two managed to touch upon additional topics and to pursue limited progress in improving bilateral ties. The next piece in this series will explore this process and the impact events like Ansari's arrest have on it.

Stephen Tankel is an assistant professor at American University and a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He recently returned from an extended research trip to South Asia examining internal security issues and is spending the summer at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars as a public policy scholar.

In mid-June, after the fifth drone strike in two weeks, militant leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur of North Waziristan resorted to taking hostages. No Americans being readily available, Bahadur decided that the Western-funded effort to eradicate polio would suffice, declaring a ban on vaccinations until U.S. drone strikes cease. Militant leader Mullah Nazir of South Waziristan soon followed suit, announcing his own ban on June 26th.

From Bahadur's perspective, there is something to the argument that drone strikes do more damage than polio. North Waziristan suffered from only 14 new polio cases last year, even as U.S. drone strikes killed over 250 of its residents, many of them armed militants allied with Bahadur. Of course, that these same militants are in fact largely responsible for both the mayhem and the public health crisis in Waziristan likely doesn't enter into Bahadur's calculations. As it stands, however, the polio vaccination campaign in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) matters more to outsiders than it does to the tribal areas' residents themselves, and as such it provides a tempting target for militant groups desperate for any kind of leverage over the United States.

Bahadur's and Nazir's bans fit into a broader pattern of Pakistani militants using intimidation and violence to halt polio vaccination campaigns in FATA. Militants have long spread rumors that the vaccines are part of a Western conspiracy to sterilize or poison Muslims, leading to high rates of vaccination refusal. Extremist groups have specifically targeted health workers for kidnapping or assassination, killing the head of the polio vaccination campaign in Bajaur in 2007.

The United States stands behind both drone strikes and health programs in FATA, blurring the lines between the two. This has always created tension, as seen in the debate over USAID's on-again/off-again demand that its programs in FATA be overtly branded as "from the American people," even as those carrying out such programs are labeled as spies and targeted by militants. Suspicions of U.S.-funded health programs have been compounded by revelations that CIA informant Dr. Shakil Afridi attempted to collect information on Osama bin Laden's family in Abbottabad under the guise of a vaccination campaign.

Pakistan's remaining polio sanctuaries have become closely linked with anti-Western militancy and pose a growing challenge to the worldwide effort to eradicate polio. Globally, this effort has succeeded in reducing the annual incidence of polio from over 350,000 cases in 1988 to less than 700 in 2011. The eradication campaign has foundered with the increase in militancy in Pakistan, however, as polio cases there have risen each year since 2005. Last year Pakistan was responsible for more cases than any other country, most of which were concentrated in the Pashto-speaking areas along the Afghan border, including Waziristan.

Polio can easily spread from the tribal areas to elsewhere in the country. Labor migration and conflict have resulted in regular movement between Waziristan and Karachi, where polio has repeatedly surfaced. From the sprawling port city's volatile slums the disease can spread onward, back to India, Bangladesh, and other countries which earlier rid themselves - at least temporarily - of polio. This potential danger was underscored in late 2011, when the World Health Organization traced China's first polio outbreak in ten years back to Pakistan.

In addition to Pakistan, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Nigeria. In all three countries it occurs nearly exclusively in Muslim areas home to anti-Western insurgencies. Polio persists here for two reasons: militants deny vaccination teams access to areas under their control and parents refuse to let their children be vaccinated. Both of these can be traced back to fears that vaccination is part of an anti-Muslim plot. These fears, however laughable they may appear to outsiders, need to be taken seriously.

The global campaign must be transformed into a Muslim-led effort if it is to eradicate polio from these remaining sanctuaries. Through no fault of their own, the World Health Organization's director for Global Polio Eradication, Dr. Bruce Aylward, and representative in Pakistan, Dr. Guido Sabatinelli, are no longer the most effective choices for the campaign's visible leadership. Polio has been eradicated in Muslim-majority countries as varied as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Tajikistan, leaving behind a capable cadre of public health officials who could take over such posts.

Western funding and technical support will remain necessary, but it should be discretely channeled through the World Bank or World Health Organization. The United States in particular must publicly disassociate itself from the vaccination effort. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation needs to help provide funds for polio eradication, securing at least token donations from all its poorer member states and significant amounts from the wealthier members. Polio concerns all Muslim-majority countries; if eradication continues to falter it is only a matter of time before the annual Hajj pilgrimage, attracting hundreds of thousands of Muslims from across the world, becomes a site of polio transmission.

At the national level, Pakistan must continue its efforts to brand polio vaccination as Islamic. Some progress has already been made in securing the support of religious and nationalist leaders such as Imran Khan and Fazlur Rehman. International religious figures popular among FATA Pashtuns, including Dr. Zakir Naik of India and Imam Abdul Rehman al-Sudais of Saudi Arabia should also be encouraged to lend public support to Pakistan's eradication efforts. If jihadist figures such as Hafiz Saeed of Lashkar-e-Taiba are willing to pose for photo-ops giving oral vaccination drops to three year olds, that too would be helpful.

For FATA residents to care about polio vaccination, this public relations campaign should be expanded to include health issues with a more immediate and devastating impact. In 2002, the World Health Organization found that tetanus was responsible for over a fifth of all infant mortality in FATA. Taking into account population and birth rate estimates, this suggests a rough figure of at least two thousand infants in FATA dying every year from tetanus alone, which is easily prevented with proper vaccinations for expecting mothers. The same militants who have banned the anti-polio campaign have also kept health workers from saving these and the thousands of other children who die from preventable diseases in FATA. The tribal areas' residents should be enlisted in the effort to pressure militants to cease banning health programs as a weapon in their struggle against the Pakistani Government and the United States. To do this requires speaking to their concerns and assuaging their fears of foreign-funded vaccination campaigns.

Events along the remote Afghanistan-Pakistan border have a global impact for two reasons: terrorism and polio. Despite Bahadur's and Nazir's threats, U.S. drone strikes will continue in Waziristan, and perhaps the tribal areas will eventually fade as a center of anti-Western terrorism. In order for polio eradication to succeed, however, it must be separated from the United States and its drone strikes. It will be much easier to make the polio eradication campaign Islamic than it will be to erase anti-Western sentiment in FATA and other polio-endemic areas. Only by handing over the reins - and the credit - for polio eradication to Muslims, will Waziri, Pakistani, and American children together live in a polio-free world.

Sean Mann is currently in the Masters of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown University. He speaks Pashto, and recently spent a year conducting research on the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Shakeel Afridi, the Pakistani doctor who allegedly helped the CIA track down the world's most wanted man in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, is undergoing a 33-year jail term on charges of lending financial and physical support to a banned militant outfit in Khyber, one of the seven tribal districts partly overrun by the Taliban and their supporters. Afridi's punishment -- which many see as merely retribution by the Pakistani government (as opposed to a normal court proceeding) for his cooperation with the United States' intelligence community -- came exactly a year after he was subjected to secret Pakistani interrogations and under the legal auspices of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR).

The colonial-era law has been under serious criticism from civil society representatives in Pakistan and human rights organization both inside the country and abroad because a number of its clauses are in violation of basic human rights. Although the elected Pakistani government has boasted of introducing reforms in the tribal areas and amending the FCR, Afridi's "trial" has exposed the grim reality of a judicial system where an individual can be sentenced while denied the proper recourse to defense. However, the illegitimacy of these charges against Afridi only masks a far more complex state of affairs. 

Before being whisked away by Pakistani intelligence agents on May 23, 2011 in the outskirts of the tribal Khyber Agency and his subsequent court appearance a year later, Afridi had already once experienced something similar when he was brought blindfolded to the warlord Mangal Bagh of Lashkar-e-Islam. 

It must have been déjà vu.

In 2008, he was arrested and presented before Mangal Bagh under the shadows of guns and bayonets and was asked to explain why he did not provide medical treatment at the time to Lashkar-e-Islam militants after battle. Afridi was lucky, at least at that time, that one militant testified before Mangal Bagh that the doctor had treated him well when he (the militant) visited the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital in Dogra after receiving a bullet injury. The statement saved Afridi's life but his family had to procure a payment of two million rupees, roughly $20,000 U.S. dollars (obviously a hefty sum for an average Pakistani family) to win his release.

In 2008, Afridi stood alone before a warlord without any counsel and without any right even to speak in self-defense. The judge, the counsel, and the plaintiff were one person -- Mangal Bagh. Four years later, Afridi found himself faced with a similar situation. This time he was presented before an officer of the Pakistani state. But again he found himself without counsel and without a chance to speak in his own defense. And this was the court of the Assistant Political Agent (APA), who charged him for his "close links with defunct Lashkar-e-Islam and his love for Mangal Bagh."

If it was really a "love", then much better to call it "love under duress", as living and serving in Bara, a town located less than 15 miles from Peshawar and a fiefdom of Mangal Bagh, requires one to have ample courage and strength.

The clear and cruel paradox in Afridi's case is that the state of Pakistan found him guilty of involvement in anti-state activities by "providing medical assistance" to militants of the very group that charged and punished him before for not sufficiently aiding their efforts -- and who subsequently robbed him of his family's wealth. If payment of a ransom to save one's life -- or the lives of his family -- from a group of thugs and its elusive leadership is an anti-state act, then roughly half of the tribal area's population could be charged under the offense and punished along the lines of Afridi.

Furthermore, if we applied the same investigation process used against Afridi to some in the state security agencies then it wouldn't be hard to establish links between certain sitting members of parliament from FATA and militant outfits. It was the Bara-based Lashkar-e-Islam that issued a fare list for transporters and a code of conduct for candidates contesting the 2008 general elections from the Khyber Agency. Interestingly, no state security agency, not even the powerful army involved in the tribal areas over the past 10 years, seemed to notice Magal Bagh and his army of volunteers running a parallel state by imposing fines, forcing people to pray five times a day, punishing men for walking bareheaded, kidnapping people for ransom, and carrying out executions.

The more pertinent question one must ask is whether Afridi's "links" with Manal Bagh was the real charge against him? It has been clear from the time of his arrest soon after the May 2 raid in Abbottabad and the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the answer is definitively "no". That Afridi, being a citizen of Pakistan and employee of the state, worked for a foreign intelligence agency is in no way an act that could be defended. But for reasons well known, he was not tried under those charges. Rather, he was implicated in a low-hanging fruit charge of a ludicrous association with a group that once abducted and fined him two million rupees -- thus raising more questions about Pakistan's sincerity in fighting militants in the country.

The two verdicts handed down to Afridi -- one by Mangal Bagh in 2008 for not providing medical assistance to his men, and the second by the Pakistani state in 2012 for "providing medical and financial assistance" to militants -- are enough for the international community to understand the dilemma of tribesmen sandwiched between the state security agencies and the militants.

For years, tribesmen have looked to their government and state security agencies for protection against the groups of thugs operating in their areas, and have at times taken up arms to fight. Yet they find scant change in their circumstances. Is it little wonder that they invariably surrender and sometimes even agree to "support" militants, in the way Dr. Afridi did?

Daud Khattak is a Pakistani journalist currently working as a senior editor of Radio Mashaal of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague. Khattak has worked with Pakistan's English dailies The News and Daily Times, Afghanistan's Pajhwok Afghan News, and has also written for Christian Science Monitor and London's Sunday Times. The views expressed here are the author's own and do not represent Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The June 5, 2012 drone strike that killed Abu Yahya al-Libi is a major milestone in America's long-term effort to break the back of al-Qaida's general command. With Abu Yahya al-Libi's death, al-Qaida has lost its last great unifier, a man who possessed the rare talents and credentials to keep an inherently unwieldy global movement on track and in line. Without their ideological enforcer standing guard, the various al-Qaida affiliates and militants will invariably begin to wander off al-Qaida's sanctioned path.

Although depicted by the U.S. government as al-Qaida's "number two," his role as an administrator was hardly what made him so critical to al-Qaida. Abu Yahya al-Libi will be remembered within al-Qaida's circles as one of their staunchest ideological defenders, uncompromising internal whips and charismatic, populist leaders. He epitomized the "mujahid shaykh" archetype, one of only a handful of leaders who al-Qaida's rank-in-file intellectually revered, emotionally loved and religiously emulated.

A revolutionary to his core, the bureaucratic success of the al-Qaida organization was never Abu Yahya's end goal. Al-Qaida was a matter of convenience, a ready-made architecture that he almost begrudgingly joined after escaping from an American military prison in July 2005. As the last group standing, al-Qaida would be Abu Yahya's best chance for advancing his agenda, one that far exceeded the goals of even al-Qaida's top brass. Abu Yahya not only wanted to get the Americans out and tear Arab regimes down, he wanted to remake Islam from the inside. Abu Yahya was an intellectual insurgent of Machiavellian proportions.  

For most of his early career, Abu Yahya was of the same mind about al-Qaida as many of his Libyan jihadist compatriots who joined the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. Osama bin Laden was a man to be respected from arms-length. His deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, could not be trusted, and should be avoided. Instead, Abu Yahya - whose real name is Hasan Qaid, dedicated the next ten years of his life to gaining the religious knowledge he needed to help support the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group's (LIFG) cause to oust Muammar Gaddafi and implement Shariah in Libya.

Under the moniker Younis al-Sahrawi, Abu Yahya did at least two separate stints in Mauritania during the mid-1990s studying under heavyweight hardline Salafi shaykhs. The combination of his natural intellect, easygoing populist appeal, and this formal religious credentialing vaulted him into the LIFG's upper echelon. Returning to Afghanistan in the late-1990s with many of his Libyan jihadist colleagues, Abu Yahya forged close bonds with the Taliban's media and public relations managers, even serving as one of their webmasters in 2000-2001. He would be arrested in his Karachi flat in 2002 by Pakistani security forces, who transferred him to American custody, eventually landing him back in Afghanistan in one of America's most tightly guarded military prisons at Bagram.

After spending three years in American custody, Abu Yahya and three colleagues staged a daring jailbreak from Bagram in July 2005, which would mark the beginning of his meteoric rise to global jihadist stardom. At this time, al-Qaida's brand was getting hammered.  Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's gratuitous use of violence in Iraq and Jordan had provoked a catastrophic public relations backlash for the organization. Then al-Qaida number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, tried to control the damage through a recalibration of al-Qaida's public messaging and a sternly phrased letter to Zarqawi, but neither was enough.  Without a heavy-hitting religious defense, usually provided by a troika of Saudi shaykhs who by then had all been jailed, al-Qaida could not make a meaningful religious defense.  They needed an in-house shaykh who had the charisma and media-savvy to push back against external critics and internal miscreants.  Enter Abu Yahya al-Libi. 

His initial post-escape media appearances on a Taliban-affiliated media outlet, Labaik Media, reflected Abu Yahya's reticence to officially link himself to al-Qaida's organizational apparatus. In December 2005, Abu Yahya penned his own letter to his longstanding personal friend Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. That relationship, combined with Abu Yahya's clerical gravitas and a follow-on letter from another respected Libyan, Atiyah abd al-Rahman, helped muzzle Zarqawi in a way that Zawahiri was not able to do alone.

It would not be until 2006 that Abu Yahya decided to appear under the auspices of al-Qaida's official media outlet, As-Sahab.  Some of the prodding to play a formal role in al-Qaida likely came from his close friend and confidant, Abu Laith al-Libi, who not long after would announce the formal merger of his offshoot of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group with al-Qaida. By 2006, Abu Yahya was releasing new products at a feverish pace, each one seeming to up the ante in its extremism, absolutism and militancy. 

Abu Yahya's decision to shift from his local focus on Libyan Islamist militancy to that of al-Qaida's global jihadist terrorism may have been an outgrowth of his personal need for vengeance against the United States for the treatment he claims that he endured while in captivity, three years of conversations with other detainees about their treatment and experiences with the United States, and a pragmatic realization that al-Qaida was the only game in town with any real chance at mobilizing a global revolution. Whatever the case, it was precisely the kind of intellectual sophistication and scholarly depth for which al-Qaida had been so desperate.

In the short six years that Abu Yahya al-Libi had been affiliated with al-Qaida, he helped resuscitate the senior leadership, which had been operationally defeated and religiously battered. He breathed new life into their ideology and restored their position as the vanguard of al-Qaida's global movement.  His importance to al-Qaida cannot be overstated and, therefore, neither can the impact of his death on its future.

A near-term uptick in al-Qaida affiliate attacks on soft targets would not be surprising - neither would increased levels of in-fighting within and across the multiple levels of al-Qaida's global movement. With no one left to check the zealotry of al-Qaida's eager but undisciplined young generation, the future of al-Qaida without Abu Yahya will be more chaotic and interested in using violence for the sake of violence.  All the public relations efforts that the senior leadership have made in recent years to spin al-Qaida as a kinder, gentler movement  will be squandered, eventually culminating in the dissolution of what limited coherence al-Qaida's global movement has managed to maintain.

Jarret Brachman is a counterterrorism expert currently on faculty at North Dakota State University.