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Frontier tales: Al Qaeda vs Taliban
 Mullah Dadullah Akhund, the top Taliban operational commander in Afghanistan, will be delighted about last week, despite failing to bring to heel Operation Achilles, the current NATO offensive in Helmand province, and despite losing almost 100 fighters in just a couple of days. After all, Dadullahs younger brother, Mansoor Ahmed, came home on Monday from an Afghan government jail in Kabul, released along with four other top Taliban prisoners in exchange for Daniele Mastrogiacomo, an Italian journalist who had been kidnapped two weeks earlier. The Italian government is believed to have left Afghan president Hamid Karzai with no choice but to release the prisoners, threatening to pull Italys 1,900 soldiers out of Afghanistan if Mastrogiacomo was killed. Pleased with the outcome, the Taliban has promised to kidnap more foreign journalists. Dadullahs penchant for bloodily slaughtering prisoners on propaganda videotapes hides a load of sibling solicitude so deep that he promised to relax for a while and let his brother run the Taliban in his place. But more than his brothers return, Dadullahs jubilation was about a huge diplomatic coup that he pulled off last week: resolving an ideological schism in Pakistans North West Frontier Province (NWFP), between local tribal Taliban fighters and foreign Al Qaeda militants, mainly Uzbeks, who settled there after being driven out of Afghanistan in 2001. Dadullahs diplomacy has cleared the decks for the launch of the Talibans Afghanistan offensive this year. The Taliban and Al Qaeda fundamentally disagreed over whom to fight. The Taliban, practical Pashtuns bred in the tradition of carrying jehad into Afghanistan from safe havens in the NWFP, argued that their fight was against Western infidels in Afghanistan, not against the Pakistani army, which signed a peace deal with tribal Maliks (chiefs) last year and withdrew into cantonments. But the Uzbeks and Arabs of Al Qaeda were in no way inclined to let the sleeping dogs lie. Their jehad was directed at crusaders ally General Musharrafs government as much as Hamid Karzais and the Nato forces in Afghanistan. Al Qaedas aim was nothing short of establishing the Islamic Emirate of Pakistan. Dadullah resolved the disagreement in good Pashtun style, negotiating with a gun held to the opponents head. Last Tuesday, Taliban fighters in South Waziristan attacked Uzbek commander Tahir Yaldashevs forces; in two days of battle, over 100 Uzbeks were killed and hundreds more surrounded by Taliban fighters. Having flashed a glint of steel, Dadullah despatched negotiators, who persuaded the rattled Uzbeks to maintain peace in the NWFP. The Taliban and Al Qaeda will no longer dissipate strength fighting Pakistani soldiers in Waziristan; instead, they will cross the Durand Line to fight Nato forces in Afghanistan. Islamabad is jubilant. It claims the Pashtuns are cleaning out their own house, expelling the foreign militants. Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao declared that this validates the wisdom of last years cease-fire with tribal Maliks. What he glosses over is that the tribal commanders who routed Al Qaeda in Waziristan last week, chieftains like Sadiq Noor and Abdul Khaliq, are known Taliban men. Among Dadullahs negotiators who mediated the Taliban-Al Qaeda agreement are Baitullah Mehsud (perpetrator of several recent suicide attacks inside Pakistan, including the killing of 42 Pakistan Army soldiers in Dargai in November 2006) and Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of legendary Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani. In effect, Islamabad has handed over the NWFP to the Taliban. Dadullahs diplomacy has trumped that of America: he has created a secure haven to press operations against Nato. In contrast, US diplomacy has run aground on the self-imposed condition that pushing Musharraf (Our Man in Islamabad) beyond a point will destabilise his regime. Now, however, Washington may have tossed aside the kid gloves. Dick Cheneys plain-speaking lunch in Islamabad with General Musharraf on February 26 was the first harbinger of US frustration. That alone wouldnt give Musharraf sleepless nights; hes heard all that before. What is enormously worrisome for him, embattled as he already is by protests against the sacking of Pakistans Chief Justice, are new US statements suggesting that he honour his commitment to hang up his uniform this year. The General will correctly reason that this is not a sudden upsurge of American nostalgia for Pakistans long-dead democracy. He will understand that George W Bush, desperate for success in Afghanistan to offset the failure in Iraq, is deadly serious about Pakistan cracking down on the Taliban in the NWFP. That leaves Musharraf in a pickle. On the one hand, he could order the Pakistan Army to resume operations in the NWFP. That would stir enormous resentment, not just within the Islamist parties, but also among his commanders and troops who really underpin Musharrafs continuation in power. By ignoring their views, Musharraf would end up ousted, dead, or as Pakistans Hamid Karzai, propped up and protected by US support, and increasingly out of touch with his own country. On the other hand, the General could defy Uncle Sam. If he does that, Washington will intensify dialogue with Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, and look among the senior ranks of Pakistans military for more unquestioning support. But will another leader provide the US with better results in the NWFP? Whoever replaces Musharraf will face the same choices. Who said being a dictator was easy? Or a superpower? Posted by: Fred 2007-03-27 |
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