While the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
troops have been using air power against the Taliban and other militant groups
in Afghanistan,
Pakistani troops in recent operations have resorted to the same tactics,
tactics which have resulted in few gains and a rising civilian death toll. Particularly
in ongoing military operations in the troubled Waziristan region, and lately in
the Khyber Agency, these strikes are beginning to spur a major reaction amongst
local populations; in one such
strike in April, which later prompted an apology
from the Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, over 70 civilians
were killed in the remote Tirah Valley of Khyber
tribal agency, a mountainous area between Khyber and Orakzai agencies and on
the border with Afghanistan.
While the April incident sparked widespread anger from the local population, at
the same time the Pakistani press lauded Kayani for his public statement requesting
an apology from the victims of the ‘mistaken' bombing. However, to the dismay
of many, particularly the tribesmen and elders from Tirah, another ‘mistaken'
bombing on August 31 killed dozens
of civilians, though the exact number is not known due to remoteness of the
area.
Both strikes targeted the head of a Lashkar-e-Islam, Mangal Bagh, who escaped both
times; however, while the people of Tirah accepted the apology of the Pakistani
army chief the first time, they are in no mood to be as generous after the
second failed strike.
Bagh, the bus driver turned militant leader who ran an army of volunteers in
Bara area of Khyber Agency, located just 15 kilometers south-east of Peshawar
as recently as 2009, is not the first militant commander to have evaded arrest
or bombing.
The Waziristan-based
Hakimullah Mehsud and his key commanders, Bajaur-based
Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, Mohmand-based
Abul Wali (alias Omar Khalid) and Maulana Fazlullah of Swat,
have already escaped such strikes before. And instead of curtailing their
operations in face of a more aggressive Pakistani military effort, these
militant leaders have broken the cordon of the security forces around their
respective agencies to stage new attacks against the Pakistani government, army
and people in the country's heartland and major cities.
Despite being ill-equipped, surrounded and observed constantly, these leaders managed
to escape each time Pakistani forces surrounded their sanctuaries. Their
evasions not only frustrated the efforts of the Pakistani army, but also
deepened the awe and fear the militant commanders inspire among regular
Pakistanis. On the one hand, civilians are fed up with the nearly daily
bombings, targeted killings, harassment and kidnappings perpetrated by the
militants. But as more civilians die in failed attempts to kill militants with
no visible progress in curtailing militant activities, support for the
government among the population decreases.
Indeed, because of the government's inability to eliminate militant groups and
their leaders, the people in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)
continue to feel threatened and intimidated. A massive operation in May 2009 in
Swat against Maulana Fazlullah and his brigades of gun-wielding men was no
doubt a success for the Pakistan
army. Yet even a year later, Swat cannot be called "safe"; Fazlullah is still alive
as evidenced by his video
address to a ‘squad of suicide bombers,' later released to the Pakistani
media (a copy is also in the author's possession). These remarks, made at an
undisclosed location, are enough for the people of Swat to be reminded of his
presence, and fear his eventual return.
A similar operation conducted in South
Waziristan in October 2009 claimed a landmark
victory against the militants led by Hakimullah Mehsud, Qari Hussain and
Wali-ur-Rehman. Yet suicide bombings and targeted killings in and around the
region are still rampant. The August suicide blast on a
mosque in South Waziristan that killed former lawmaker Maulvi Noor Muhammad, the
May attack on
former parliamentarian Maulana Merajuddin and the blast
earlier this month at a police station in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's Lakki Marwat all
point to the persistent strength of the militants in the area.
Instead of showing signs of weakness, the emboldened militants are now staging
attacks in cities like Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi and even
the country's central capital Islamabad.
From the daring attack on the
Sri Lankan cricket team in the country's eastern city of Lahore in 2009 to the devastating
multiple suicide blasts in the same city on a procession of Shia mourners
on September 1 and the recent blasts in Peshawar and Lakki Marwat, one can not
say with authority that the Taliban are showing any signs of slowing down.
Rather, they are reaching the cities once considered safe. Looking at the marked
increase in Taliban-related violence in the Pakistani cities, one wonders about
the logic behind the recent statement of the country's Foreign Minister Shah
Mahmood Qureshi saying the increase in violence was reaction to the ‘successful
operations' against the Taliban.
Judging on the basis of the spike in violence and the intensity of the attacks,
it is easy to presume that the militants are on the offensive. And this
aggressive posture is linked to the fact that the militant leadership is still
alive despite the use of all available resources to hunt them, from jet
bombings, to artillery shelling and large-scale incursions into the militants'
territory.
In such a situation, the repercussions are getting grim for the government and
the army when a mistaken bombing claim civilian lives, creating pockets of
support for the militants instead of rooting them out.
Daud Khattak is a
Pashtun journalist currently working for the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Pashto-language
station Radio Mashaal.
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