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| India-Pakistan | |
| Pakistan: Taliban leader builds new links with Al-Qaeda | |
| 2009-09-11 | |
| [ADN Kronos] By Syed Saleem Shahzad - On the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Washington and London have signalled a shift in strategy in the South Asian war theatre stressing the need to talk to moderate Taliban leaders. They have also announced a major boost in military hardware to eliminate extremists, particularly in the Pakistani tribal areas, the strategic backyard of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Now Al-Qaeda has revealed a new strategy in Pakistan's tribal areas to confront the new western plans. After the demise of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, killed in an alleged US drone attack in August, veteran Mufti Waliur Rahman Mehsud was brushed aside and cowboy styled Hakimullah Mehsud was installed as leader of the umbrella Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
A month has passed since 5 August, the most fateful day in the US-led anti-terror campaign when a drone missile attack eliminated Baitullah Mehsud. Finally the hot blooded, young warlord Hakimullah Mehsud was installed as the figurehead of the Pakistani Taliban and Mufti Waliur Rahman was appointed as the commander of the Taliban in Mehsud's stronghold of South Waziristan bordering Afghanistan. Emissaries of the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's in the tribal areas initially put their support behind Mufti Waliur Rahman, a more sensible and senior candidate, as chief of the Pakistani Taliban but other forces in the tribal areas namely Al-Qaeda were very uncomfortable with that choice. The reason was clear. Mufti Waliur Rahman's affinity with radical Arab camps in the region and with their ideology was ambiguous. Mufti Waliur Rahman was previously a religious scholar and linked to a faculty in a local Islamic school. He was also a member of the Islamist political party, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) led by Fazlur Rahman. The JUI is part of the incumbent coalition government in Islamabad. Mufti was still in contact with several top JUI leaders including Maulana Fazlur Rahman. Since Baitullah Mehsud's death the biggest threat for Al-Qaeda were the 'gimmicks' proposed by the Pakistani army, including monetary compensation and bargaining for limited peace deals to buy time so their intelligence networks could infiltrate the tribal areas and coordinate drone attacks against Al-Qaeda members. Mufti Waliur Rahman was an unacceptable face for Al-Qaeda as militants considered him unreliable and there were fears that if he was appointed chief of the Taliban he might agree to a ceasefire deal with Pakistani security forces, if his former political allies from JUI approach him as guarantors. There was also a risk that Mufti Waliur Rahman would also abandon TTP's ties with Pakistani terror networks like the Islamist Laskhar-e-Jhangvi and restrict the Taliban's role to the tribal area, supporting the insurgency in Afghanistan rather than taking up the arms against the Pakistan army. At a time when the Pakistani tribal areas are a vital link on the strategic front for both the insurgents as well as NATO forces, Al-Qaeda wanted a local partner who would completely support its plans and resources and carry the war to its conclusion. So for Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban the developments which arose after September 11 in Afghanistan would take a decisive turn in 2009. NATO forces in Afghanistan have come under siege as the conflict with militants expanded in northern Afghanistan and forced Washington and London to seek peace talks with the Taliban, without Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists. Recently the Afghan insurgency received a boost when insurgents operating out of Afghanistan's Baghlan district on the highway from Tajikistan launched coordinated attacks threatening to disrupt NATO's new supply route from Central Asia. NATO's supply lines from Pakistan to southern Afghanistan have already come under attack and late last year seriously squeezed NATO resources inside Afghanistan. A substitute route was finalised through the central Asian republics but that is now under attack. The Taliban have also intensified its attacks against NATO and the number of foreign troop casualties has risen to an all-time high this year. In this phase of the Afghan conflict which Al-Qaeda considers decisive, its leaders regard any pause in the violence through a ceasefire or potential peace talks as a trap and its top ideologues understand that welcoming such moves as a clear retreat before a near victory. Shiekh Saeed Al-Misri, emissary of Al-Qaeda's second-in- command, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, put Al-Qaeda's weight behind 29 year-old Hakimullah Mehsud, who finally won the backing of all stakeholders as the Pakistani Taliban's new chief. He is the new generation of the Taliban which completely reared under Al-Qaeda's influence and has never communicated with the Pakistani establishment. This is a significant development which makes peace and reconciliation in Pakistan a far more remote possibility. Earlier, 2500 Uzbek fighters loyal to Qari Tahir Yaldeshiv of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who were living in exile in the Pakistani tribal areas became the backbone of slain Baitullah Mehsud, who became the biggest Taliban commander in the region with Al-Qaeda support. Al-Qaeda foresees an identical role for Hakimullah Mehsud through similar support. It is very much apparent that unlike slain Baitullah Mehsud's vertical command structure, the command structure of TTP under Hakimullah Mehsud will be more fragmented. Hakimullah Mehsud will only coordinate activities between pro-Taliban warlords in Pakistani tribal areas like Mullah Fazlullah in Malakand, Maulvi Faqir in Bajaur, Waliur Rahman in South Waziristan, and his own group operating in Derra Adam Khel, Kurram agency, Khyber agency and Orakzai agency. Unlike Baitullah Mehsud, Hakimullah's control will be limited to these commanders but Al-Qaeda envisions Hakimullah's role extending beyond the tribal areas. It aims to establish a nexus with Hakimullah, like the one they had with slain Baitullah Mehsud, through which they would carry out a few big operations in the region of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and possibly outside the region which gives a new twist to the war on terror. Immediately after Hakimullah Mehsud was installed as the chief of Pakistani Taliban, Zawahiri released a powerful video message. "The war in the tribal areas and Swat is an inseparable part of the Crusaders' assault on Muslims the length and breadth of the Islamic world," he said. "The Pakistan army is acting as a fundamental element of the Crusade against Islam and Muslims, and has become a tool in the hands of the global Crusade." Al-Zawahiri said that there was only one means available "to get out of this predicament which Pakistan had found itself: it is through Jihad, and there is no way other than Jihad." This clearly signals that the new nexus between Al-Qaeda and Hakimullah Mehsud will have a special focus on Pakistani cities and involve launching joint high-profile terror operations aimed to outmaneouvre the new regional plans devised by the United States and the United Kingdom. Hakimullah Mehsud fired his first shot on last Wednesday when two gunmen, associated with the Taliban, ambushed the motorcade of Pakistan's minister for the religious affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi. Hamid, a fiercely anti-Taliban cleric, was injured but his driver was killed in the attack. More attacks are being planned and are aimed at keeping Pakistan on the defensive. Al-Qaeda has previously carried out identical plots to counter the western coalition in the region. The murder of former Pakistani prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, in December 2007 was one example through which Al-Qaeda created chaos and put Pakistan on defensive against the Taliban despite US pressure. The Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008 was another example of Al-Qaeda's plot to undermine the western coalition. It caused so much hostility between India and Pakistan that international attention was diverted from Afghanistan and despite mediation by Washington, relations between Pakistan and India remained tense for months. The Madrid train bombings of 2004 and the London bombings of 2005 were two other examples in which Al-Qaeda sought to exert its power. Pakistan is likely to be the new focus of American and British attempts to quell the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan. Both allies agree on an early exit strategy from Afghanistan and aim to train the Afghan army and police, as fast as possible, to take over the burden of battling the insurgents and in the meantime, western coalition forces aim to strike as many deals as possible with the moderate Taliban. There is speculation that there will be an exodus of top Taliban commanders from Afghanistan who will head to the Pakistani tribal areas to regroup and there is immense pressure from Washington on the Pakistani army to start ground operations in South Waziristan to deprive Al-Qaeda and the Taliban of consolidating its base. However, before that happens, Al-Qaeda's endorsement of Hakimullah Mehsud puts him at the top of the hierarchy to carry out the next phase of the organisation's plans in South Asia. | |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > THE TALIBAN DON'T WANT TO BE CALLED THE TALIBAN. D *** NG IT, it hurts their feelings, + they prefer "ISLAMIC EMIRATE OF AFGHANISTAN" [FUTURE NUKULAAR, of course]. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-09-11 00:32 |