Anand Gopal

Militancy and Conflict in Pakistan Policy Paper

North Waziristan, the second-largest of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, is the most important springboard for violence in Afghanistan today, much as it has been for decades. The most important militant group in the agency today is the Haqqani Network. The legendary Afghan mujahideen commander Jalaluddin Haqqani left his native Khost province and settled in North Waziristan’s capital, Miram Shah, in the mid-1970s; his son, Sirajuddin, was raised in the area.[i] Jalaluddin quickly became the most important mujahideen commander in eastern Afghanistan during the 1980s; Sirajuddin now manages the network his father built, employing it to support violence against U.S. and NATO forces. Like his father, Sirajuddin uses North Waziristan to recruit, as a safe haven, and for strategic depth. North Waziristan is well-suited for all of these purposes because of its geographic isolation, difficult terrain, and relatively stable coalition of tribal militants. Read the rest of this entry »

KABUL–Pakistan has arrested nearly half of the Afghanistan Taliban’s leadership in recent days, Pakistani officials told the Monitor Wednesday, dealing what could be a crucial blow to the insurgent movement.

In total, seven of the insurgent group’s 15-member leadership council, thought to be based in Quetta, Pakistan, including the head of military operations, have been apprehended in the past week, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

Western and Pakistani media had previously reported the arrest of three of the 15, but this is the first confirmation of the wider scale of the Pakistan crackdown on the Taliban leadership, something the US has sought.

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The militants had struck a deal to relinquish their weapons in return for Islamic law in the region.

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Militants in the Swat valley of northwestern Pakistan are refusing to abandon their weapons, despite having won concessions from Pakistan’s president, including the imposition of sharia, or Islamic law. The announcement deepens worries that the agreement with the militants will not bring peace to the region.

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Kabul, Afghanistan - Militants attacked a supply depot Sunday in Pakistan that serves Western forces in Afghanistan, increasing the pressure for US and NATO officials to find alternatives to their beleaguered supply lines.

In a predawn raid in the northwestern city of Peshawar, scores of Pakistani Taliban guerrillas torched trucks stationed at the supply terminal. The assault is the latest in a series that have targeted the Western supply convoys that run through Pakistan to replenish forces fighting in Afghanistan.

Attacks on convoys and depots increased dramatically in 2008 after militants gained a foothold in the Khyber Agency, an area bordering Afghanistan through which supply routes run. The guerrillas have torched more than 500 vehicles in the last year, and a number of times they even succeeded in temporarily halting the supply chain altogether.

Some 70 percent of Western supplies come through the militant-infested western Pakistan. To add to US and NATO difficulties, another major supply route via a base in Kyrgyzstan, is slated to close.

“This is strategically vital,” says Waliullah Rahmani, policy analyst with the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies. “For the Americans to win this war, it’s important to find another route.”

US officials are actively seeking such routes. A series of recently-inked agreements allow the movement of non-lethal materiel through the former Soviet Central Asian States. The Monitor recently reported on US efforts to open a supply route through Uzbekistan. Officials are also considering other, even more complicated routes that pass through the caucuses.

But the alternatives come with difficulties of their own. The new “northern route” utilizes a complex rail network through many different countries, taking longer and costing more than the Pakistani route. And American overtures to the former Soviet states, in what is widely considered Russia’s sphere of influence, might spark tensions between Washington and Moscow.

Still, Moscow fears the growing strength of Islamic militants on its flank, and may be willing to work with the US and NATO. Click here to read about it.

But replacing Pakistan supply routes completely won’t be easy. The American military uses jet fuel of a standard only produced in the Gulf States and Pakistani refineries. “This will make it hard for the US to abandon Pakistan even if the northern routes work out,” says Mr. Rahmani.

The US, Pakistan Coordinate Troops to Prevent Militants From Fleeing to Either Side

Jalalabad, Afghanistan - This week’s brazen assault in Kabul underscored a major security gap for Afghanistan: its porous 1,500-mile-long border with Pakistan’s tribal areas, where militants can plan attacks and take refuge.

Wednesday’s insurgents sent text messages to contacts in Pakistan before launching an attack on three government offices that left 28 people dead, Afghanistan’s intelligence chief told reporters. Previous high-profile attacks in the capital have also been blamed on militants based in Pakistan.

In recent months, however, the US and Pakistani militaries have begun cooperating to try to secure the border by sharing intelligence and coordinating offensives on either side of it.

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Pajhwok reports that the Pak. military has killed Omar Khalid.  Khalid, the head of the so-called Shah Khalid group, was in control of Mohmand agency.

Khalid, whose group generally acted as the TTP (Pakistani Taliban) representative in Mohmand, was one of the highest-ranking leaders in the Pakistani Taliban movement. He was a close ally to Faqir Muhammad of the Bajaur agency, who in turn has been linked to Zawahiri. He has led fighters into Afghanistan to attack US forces there, according to several reports.

The Long War Journal describes Khalid’s career trajectory:

Khalid became the dominant Taliban commander in Mohmand in July 2008 after defeating the Shah Sahib group, a rival pro-Taliban terror group. Khalid’s forces killed 10 members of the Shah Sahib group and captured another 80. Among those killed were Muslim Khan, the leader of the Shah Sahib group, and Mullah Obaidullah, the deputy leader. The groups reconciled after Baitullah Mehsud ordered an end to the fighting.

The Shah Sahib group consists of fighters of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, which operates in Mohmand and across the border in Afghanistan’s Kunar province. The Lashkar-e-Taiba took part in the July 13 attack on a US outpost across the border in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province, and has conducted numerous high-profile terror attacks inside Pakistan, Kashmir, and India, including the November 2008 terror assault in Mumbai.

We still don’t have official confirmation of Khalid’s death, however

Terrorism and Security Update

A newspaper in Pakistan this week disclosed the leaked details of a secret agreement between the Pakistani government and certain tribes that allows Al Qaeda-linked militants to remain in North Waziristan, a strategically important region that borders Afghanistan. The move is the latest in a series of negotiations that Western officials worry will strengthen militants.

The agreement, between the government and leading Waziristan tribes, is the first known to directly address the issue of Al Qaeda. The document was signed in February and the Pakistani English-language Daily Times divulged the specifics on Sunday.

In a copy of the agreement made available to Daily Times, Al Qaeda-linked militants have been allowed to live in North Waziristan as long as they pledge to remain peaceful. However, a basic demand of the accord is that all foreigners leave the area. The agreement, inked between the government and the Utmanzai tribes on February 17 to fight Taliban-linked militancy through support from the local population, states that no parallel government of suspected Taliban militants would be tolerated. The Utmanzai tribes have also agreed that there would be no attacks on security personnel or government employees and no target killings would be initiated.

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Terrorism and Security Update

Earlier this week, Pakistani authorities freed a leading pro-Taliban militant who reportedly raised an army of thousands to oppose the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Observers say Maulana Sufi Muhammad’s release from prison heralds a new era of negotiation between militant groups and the new government in Islamabad.

Following the release, a ruling party official in the new Pakistani government said that envoys were engaged in talks with the Mahsud tribe in South Waziristan, in an apparent bid to secure a peace deal, reports the Associated Press.

The tribe includes Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan’s top Taliban leader who is accused of ties to al-Qaida.

Mehsud is wanted for a string of suicide attacks in Pakistan. The previous government has accused him of [former Prime Minister Benazir] Bhutto’s assassination in December. Mehsud has reportedly denied involvement and Bhutto’s party has not repeated the assertion

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