October issue 2006

Last month’s peace accord in North Waziristan is the latest point of discord between Islamabad and Kabul. Their uneasy relations have entered a new phase of uncertainty on account of Kabul’s strong belief that the agreement between pro-Taliban tribal militants and the Pakistan government would strengthen the Afghan Taliban fighters resisting US-led coalition forces across the border in Afghanistan and further destabilise the war-ravaged country.

A two-day visit by President General Pervez Musharraf to Afghanistan produced a friendly worded joint communiqué, but it failed to break the ice and overcome the trust deficit that characterises the relations between the two neighbouring Islamic countries. Pleasant words were exchanged at receptions and press conferences by President Musharraf and President Hamid Karzai, and it was felt they would henceforth be able to work jointly to tackle challenges facing their respective countries.

It didn’t happen, and a worried US President, George W. Bush, concerned that the deteriorating ties between the Afghan and Pakistan governments would undermine America’s war on terror, intervened to bring the two presidents together over a dinner meeting in the White House. Prior to that encounter in Washington, presidents Musharraf and Karzai had indulged in verbal sparring with the Pakistani leader criticising Mr Karzai for his “ostrich-like” attitude for ignoring the ground realities in Afghanistan and the Afghan president warning General Musharraf that by backing the Taliban he was nourishing snakes that would eventually harm his own country. It seems President Bush was able to convince the Afghan and Pakistani leaders to put an end to their war of words and instead discuss contentious issues at the diplomatic level, away from the glare of the media.

An important decision taken at the White House dinner-cum-summit was to hold jirgas on the Afghan and Pakistani sides of the Durand Line border, in a bid to strengthen the traditionally powerful tribal elders weakened by the rise of pro-Taliban elements and wean the tribes and borderlands away from the militants. Both General Musharraf and Mr Karzai would address the tribal jirgas. However, a timetable of these events is yet to be announced. The jirgas would require heavy security in view of the fact that both the leaders have survived attempts on their lives and are still on the hit-list of the militants linked to Al-Qaeda and Taliban. In fact, security concerns would compromise the representative status of the jirgas and could end up making them restricted affairs. It is also debatable how much these jirgas would achieve in countering the Taliban influence on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border and win back the Pashtun-inhabited areas from the control of the tribal militants.

The proposal for holding the joint jirgas was made by Mr Karzai, who apparently believes it would help in turning the tide against the resurgent Taliban. In a way, the suggestion neutralises the proposal often made by President Musharraf and his ministers that the border between the two countries should be fenced to prevent cross-border infiltration by Taliban fighters, criminals and smugglers. The proposal was made in frustration due to repeated allegations by the Afghan government and its western sponsors that Taliban and other anti-west fighters were infiltrating Afghanistan from Pakistan to attack the US-led coalition forces. Kabul has rejected the proposal by arguing that fencing was not the proper solution to check infiltration. Instead, it has been asking Islamabad to capture Al-Qaeda and Taliban figures hiding in Pakistan, destroy their sanctuaries and “do more” to curb their movement across the Durand Line. Both Islamabad and Kabul are aware that fencing their long and porous border, which is about 2,500 kilometres long and sited in formidable terrain, is impractical. Moreover, the fencing proposal doesn’t have the support of most Afghans and Pakistanis living in the border areas. They often belong to the same Pashtun tribe and have been enjoying unhindered rights to travel across the shared border without visas since Pakistan’s creation in 1947.

The Taliban are aware of the plans being drawn up in western capitals and in Kabul and Islamabad to tackle their growing resistance. If one were to believe their commanders and spokesmen, they are enjoying the spectacle of major world powers becoming unnerved due to their ability to survive against heavy odds and yet make life difficult for some of the most high-tech and powerful armies on our planet. Top Taliban military commander Mulla Dadullah, who uses an artificial leg after having lost the real one in fighting the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan’s earlier civil war, greeted NATO’s recent decision to send more troops to the Taliban-infested southern provinces by remarking that his fighters would now have even more targets to attack. He and other Taliban commanders have often pointed out that foreign soldiers become vulnerable to their attacks when they move in convoys or carry out patrols away from their heavily defended airbases. It is when the troops are on the move that Taliban fighters are able to carry out suicide attacks by ramming explosives-filled vehicles into military convoys and undertake roadside bombings triggered by remote-controlled improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The Taliban know for sure the difficulties facing NATO in getting member states to contribute 2,500 extra troops for the six southern provinces where it took command from US forces in August 2006. In fact, they increased the intensity and number of their attacks when British, Canadian and Dutch troops were stationed in Helmand, Kandahar and Urozgan provinces as part of NATO’s deployment in the area in a bid to scare away the new arrivals and cause maximum casualties to influence public opinion in these countries against sending more soldiers to Afghanistan. The strategy has worked to certain extent as opposition in Britain, Canada and the Netherlands to their troops’ deployment in southern Afghanistan is growing. Already sections of the media in all three countries and influential politicians in Canada and the Netherlands are demanding return of their soldiers from the six dangerous southern Afghan provinces. Though NATO may eventually get the required number of troops, it remains to be seen how much of an impact the new deployment and arrival of more aircraft and weapons would make on the Taliban ability to fight an effective guerilla war. The NATO has also tried to raise confidence in its capacity to successfully execute its first military mission outside Europe by deciding to operate all over Afghanistan, including the eastern provinces where 12,000 US soldiers would come under its command. Its performance would be keenly watched not only by Islamic militants, who appear determined to wage a long war against the US and its western allies, but also by China and Russia, both increasingly wary of NATO’s intrusion into regions close to their borders.

In such perilous circumstances, the strategies to be adopted to defeat Al-Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan and the region assume added significance. Pakistan has finally taken the peaceful and less risky route by negotiating armistice with homegrown Islamic militants in North Waziristan and is now advising Afghanistan to try it as well. The Pakistan military, for the last three years, used a combination of force and peaceful means to tackle militancy first in South Waziristan and later in North Waziristan. As military operations became the preferred method to solve the problems, it alienated most of the tribal populations and contributed to the level of support for Al-Qaeda and Taliban. In the process, the Pakistan Army and the paramilitary Frontier Corps lost about 600 soldiers, more than those suffered by US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The government, with the military’s backing, had earlier signed three peace agreements in South Waziristan, but the one in North Waziristan is getting greater media coverage and is being subjected to closer international scrutiny due to the rapidly spreading insurgency in Afghanistan and the rising death toll of western and Afghan troops in Taliban attacks.

The peace deals in both South Waziristan and North Waziristan have brought relative peace to the two tribal agencies and halted attacks against the military and government installations. But they have also empowered the militants, enhancing their status in the tribal society and prompting the common people to approach the pro-Taliban ulema and military commanders instead of the government to settle local disputes and solve their problems. The government accepted every demand of the militants including releasing their men, returning their weapons and vehicles, pulling troops back to their forts and bases, dismantling checkpoints and agreeing to compensating all tribesmen for human and material losses suffered by them in military operations. In return, the government has got mere promises from militants not to harbour foreign fighters, stop attacks in Pakistani territory and across the border in Afghanistan, and refrain from setting up a parallel administration in North Waziristan and exporting Talibanisation to the adjacent settled districts. The 10-member joint commission of government officials and tribal elders would have a tough job ensuring that these promises are fulfilled and monitoring the faithful implementation of the accord. It made its first move recently by taking into its custody 10 men from the Lowara Mandi border village in North Waziristan following a Taliban attack against US-led coalition troops in the neighboring Khost province in southern Afghanistan and investigating their involvement in the incident. Most of them were subsequently freed when no evidence against them was found.

The accord has also come under strain due to the continued targetted killings in North Waziristan in violation of an important clause in the deal. Four targetted killings have been reported in the past three weeks after signing of the accord and all were blamed for spying for the US. As such, accusing fingers are being pointed to the militants because they have been eliminating all those deemed to be working for the US military. Another contentious issue was the opening of a Taliban office in Miramshah by local militants to curb crimes and settle disputes. It was closed a few days later when the government realised this could develop into a sort of parallel administration in North Waziristan. Another issue that would continue to haunt the government is the impression that the peace deal in North Waziristan became possible when the Afghan Taliban advised their Pakistani counterparts to sign the accord and stop fighting the Pakistan Army. The influence that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is able to exercise in Waziristan and other Pashtun-populated areas in NWFP and Balochistan must remain a source of concern for the Pakistan government.

The Afghan government, apparently on being prodded by the US, conditionally accepted the North Waziristan peace agreement. However, Karzai has made it clear he would “wait-and-see” if the accord is able to check cross-border infiltrations. There is every reason to believe that both Kabul and Washington would eventually turn against the peace deal. Already, an unnamed US military official in Afghanistan has claimed that American troops in the southern provinces adjoining Waziristan have seen a threefold increase in attacks since the signing of the accord on September 5. Though Pakistan has dismissed this claim and denied any cross-border infiltrations from North Waziristan, it seems the US, NATO and Afghan military would increasingly level such charges to put pressure on Islamabad either to scrap the accord or ensure its strict implementation. None of those options would guarantee an end to attacks against the Americans and their allies in Afghanistan. It is obvious that this region would remain destabilised for a long time on account of the ongoing battle between the alliance of Al-Qaeda and Taliban and the US-led coalition forces