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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan's 'mock war' on Taliban |
| 2009-07-22 |
| A COALITION partner in the Pakistan government has accused the military of staging a "mock war" in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan while continuing to aid the export of militants over the border into Afghanistan. The accusation came as Pakistani intelligence officials revealed the country had objected to the expansion of US military operations in southern Afghanistan, for fear the surge would push militants back into Pakistan and exacerbate unrest in its troubled Baluchistan province. Pakistan officials told The New York Times they did not have enough troops to fight a Taliban insurgency in Baluchistan, as well as the budding separatist movement there, without depleting forces on its eastern border with India. They added it was in the country's national interest to negotiate with the Islamic militants. The appeal highlights Pakistan's continuing military obsession with India at the expense of a spiralling militant insurgency, both to its west and within its own borders. Just this week, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in a meeting with Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh handed over a dossier outlining apparent evidence of support by Indian spy operatives for the Baluchi separatists, including arms supply and training in Afghanistan. The US has long believed top Taliban commanders such as Mullah Omar are being harboured in Pakistan and has expressed repeated frustration at Pakistan's failure to act against them. Latif Afridi, a senior member of the Awami National Party and a leader of the country's lawyers movement, told The Australian the Pakistani military was not serious about routing terrorists in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and still used the Taliban as a tool with which to obtain regional "strategic steps". South Waziristan is the base of feared Tehrik-e-Taliban (Pakistan Taliban) commander Baitullah Mehsud, and a known launching pad for Taliban attacks on NATO and US forces in Afghanistan. The Pakistani military, which has been battling Taliban extremists in the Swat Valley and neighbouring districts within the North West Frontier Province since early May, announced last month it would soon launch a ground operation in Waziristan to eliminate terrorists. While the US has continued a campaign of drone missile attack on known Taliban safe havens in Waziristan, Pakistan's military campaign there has so far been confined to a "softening up" phase of occasional airstrikes against militant targets. Army liaison officer Lieutenant Colonel Baseer Haider Malik said yesterday the military was committed to its operation in South Waziristan but would pursue it at its own pace and not anyone else's timeframe. "Of course, whatever is necessary is going to be done," he said. But Mr Afridi, the ANP secretary in charge of FATA affairs, said the military was being dishonest about its operation there. "These are mere mock operations in order to convince NATO and the US that Pakistan is serious (about fighting) extremists and that Pakistan is not the mother of extremism," he told The Australian. "But, in fact, extremists are being protected and promoted with the object of destabilising Afghanistan, to compel America to seek Pakistani support, give them dollars and, ultimately, make Afghanistan a stooge state of Pakistan." Mr Afridi also cast suspicion on the military failure to apprehend any known leaders of the Swat Taliban, whose march towards the capital, Islamabad, earlier this year forced the military to act. "Unless the principal germs -- who have sown the seeds of extremism -- are eradicated, how can we claim the disease has been eradicated? There should be precise operations and hot pursuit of these leaders (but) I am afraid they're being protected". The US administration believes Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar and an inner circle of commanders direct the southern Afghanistan insurgency from the Baluchistan capital of the same name with the tacit support of Pakistani authorities. Pakistan insists Mullah Omar is in Afghanistan. |
| Posted by:tipper |