Nawaz Sharif... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
government -- perhaps because of its history of emerging from the womb of the army -- appears to be eliminating the 'bad Taliban' much more covertly than its predecessors.
Behind the angry posturing of PML-N Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and a coterie of politicians publicly denouncing the US for sending a drone through peace talks, the US and Pakistain appear to be coordinating against the Taliban who threaten western interests and attack inside Pakistain. Still, the credibility of politicians like Sartaj Aziz goes on the line when their pledge to halt drone attacks is followed by a missile strike the next day.
The discrepancy between what Pakistain says and does came to light last month when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Washington. As Sharif denounced drone attacks in his meeting with President B.O. on October 23, 2013, and victims of the attacks testified on the Hill, US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee member Alan Grayson told the media, "With all due respect to an ally, it is well within Pakistain's capability to end those drone strikes tomorrow." The congressman went on to tell the media that the Pakistain Air Force is "very powerful", and has the capability of controlling its own air space.
Mark Mazetti, author of Way of the Knife, writes that Pakistain asked the US to launch its first predator drone strike to eliminate tribal leader Nek Mohammed in 2004, after he led a rebellion against the state. Afterwards, Pakistain claimed it had fired the missile that killed the tribal leader it had once patronised. Like his predecessors, Nek Mohammed and Baitullah Mehsud, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) commander, Hakeemullah Mehsud, killed in a drone strike on November 1, 2013, had apparently grown too big for his boots. The US offered five million dollars for his capture after Hakeemullah coordinated with a Jordanian agent in December 2009 and wiped out a sizeable staff of CIA employees stationed in Khost, Afghanistan. Pakistain put Rs 50 million head money on the TTP commander for his lethal attacks against the state and citizens.
Only a select cadre in the Pak government was apparently on board about the plans to take out Hakeemullah. The PML-N government had taken JUI-F Chief
Maulana Fazlur RehmanDeobandi holy man, known as
Mullah Dieselduring the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ...
into confidence about arranging a 'peace meeting' with the Taliban in North Wazoo. Still, while talks with bully boyz were publicised, the drone strikes were kept well under the radar.
Consequently, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's visit to Washington, followed by his announcement from London on October 31, 2013 that "peace talks with the Taliban have begun", were met by puzzled silence in Pakistain. TTP front man Shahidullah Shahid told journalists the same day that they were unaware of any talks. Parliamentary leaders publicly complained that they had been kept in the dark.
In North Waziristan, months of friendly communiqués between the government apparently put bully boyz at ease. The administration's imposition of curfew added to the impression that it was for upcoming TTP-government talks. On November 1, the Taliban gathered in a mosque near Hakeemullah's sprawling farmhouse -- bought by his cousin, Latifullah Mehsud -- for a meeting on whether to talk to the government or not.
The US apparently set the ball rolling shortly after NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization....
troops snatched Latifullah in early October from the custody of Afghan intelligence officials, and interrogated him at Bagram base. Latifullah was a key link between the Taliban groups that function on both sides of the border. The Karzai government had planned to use him as an interlocutor in 'peace talks' with the Taliban, despite the TTP's known role of attacking state institutions inside Pakistain. These increased cross-border attacks have, in recent months, caused Pakistain's Foreign Office to complain that Afghanistan is being used as a safe haven for TTP bad boys.
For two days, US drones fired missiles into North Waziristan searching for their target. The second attack on November 1 was successful. Hakeemullah and his two companions were killed outside his $ 120,000 farmhouse. Neighbours reported surprise at seeing the Taliban capo before his vehicle was struck. Hakeemullah was understandably a rarity here, being on the run from drone attacks that occur mostly in this Pak-Afghan border area. With the liquidation of the TTP chief, and his replacement by Mullah Fazlullah
...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan...
, an enraged TTP has pledged attacks on the military and senior government officials in Punjab for being a 'slave' of the US.
However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday...
Islamabad says it will continue to pursue peace talks with the Taliban. In so doing, it has found PTI chief Imran Khan
... aka
Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree...
's reactions especially useful to soak up the anger. Khan's visible shock at Hakeemullah's liquidation and angry talk by the PTI and religious parties of stopping NATO convoys to Afghanistan, have served to deflect attention and let off steam. This is the same strategy that General Musharraf used after 9/11 when public anger at the US invasion of Afghanistan helped propel the coalition of Islamic parties in the border areas. Then, too, the US was allowed to become the favourite whipping boy of the masses.
However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday...
as the US prepares for withdrawal of its troops, and nations compete for a foothold in Afghanistan, Islamabad faces an uncertain future. Different intelligence agencies have gotten behind the Taliban as they fight the US, Afghanistan and Pakistain, while cementing tribal bonds across the Durand Line. The gunning down of Afghan Taliban financier Naseerullah Haqqani in Islamabad is the latest example of warring intelligence agencies. It also shows a falling out among multiple Taliban groups, once loosely commandeered by Hakeemullah Mehsud.
The drone attack in a madrassa in Hangu on November 21, 2013, which killed leading members of the Haqqani group, appears to have also hit at the Afghan bully boyz plotting in a settled area of Pakistain. As a dozen years of war have revealed, the younger generation of Taliban is angrier and less controllable than the bully boyz trained by Pakistain in the 1990s to take over Afghanistan. Indeed, there is a shortage of 'good Taliban' like Mullah Omar
... a minor Pashtun commander in the war against the Soviets who made good as leader of the Taliban. As ruler of Afghanistan, he took the title
Leader of the Faithful. The imposition of Pashtunkhwa on the nation institutionalized ignorance and brutality in a country already notable for its own fair share of ignorance and brutality...
, Mullah Baradar and the Haqqani network taking refuge in Pakistain, who merely attack NATO troops in Afghanistan and do not attack state interests within Pakistain.
How Pakistain gets rid of its bad Taliban, while deflecting anger away from it, and simultaneously gains a foothold in Afghanistan, will be a high wire act worth watching.