The blowback trail edges closer
Recrimination and acrimony between the Pakistan and Afghanistan serves no purpose.
Pakistan has finally woken up to the deadly cross-border raids by Taliban militants in its border regions. The issue was taken up with the Afghan and US authorities. It came after hordes of militants attacked a security checkpoint last week in a remote mountainous village in Upper Dir district, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa; killing over two dozen law enforcers, burning state-run schools, and holding off reinforcements for two days before airpower forced them to retreat. Though not the first of its kind, it was the first large-scale, cross-border raid by marauding insurgents.
Maulana Sufi — who was the octogenarian chief of Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi and the father-in-law of radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah — was detained after his son-in-law and his followers were routed in a military operation in Swat district in 2009. Fazlullah was the driving force behind a bloody campaign for the enforcement of what can be euphemistically called medieval Islam in the region. Some of his close aides were killed or captured, but Fazlullah ‘disappeared’ before the troops took over his headquarters of Ghat Peochar. He remained missing until late last year when he surfaced in the Afghan province of Nuristan.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters who had fled military operations in Malakand division — including the districts of Swat, Dir (Upper and Lower) and Buner — and Bajaur Agency have now ganged up in the neighbouring Afghan province of Kunar. They are led by senior Pakistani Taliban cadres like Maulana Fazlullah, Qari Ziaur Rahman, Maulvi Faqir, Noor Muhammad Shino and Taur Mullah and aided by their ideological affiliates in Afghanistan, including al Qaeda.
US troops vacated all combat posts in Kunar and Nuristan over the last couple of years. And now the Afghan National Army (ANA) is in charge of security there. Pakistani officials believe the fugitive Taliban insurgents have a support network in Afghanistan. This is understandable, given the growing anti-Pakistan feeling among the Afghans, who blame Islamabad for the current mess in their war-torn country. Afghan officials accuse Pakistan’s spy agencies for the recent phenomenal surge in violence in Afghanistan, particularly in the hitherto peaceful provinces of Takhar and Heart. The Pakistani Taliban deny official backing in Afghanistan and insist that they are in control of Kunar and Nuristan. But Pakistan’s suspicion is not completely misplaced. Reason: Ethnic minorities in Afghanistan — Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras — who had formed the Northern Alliance to fight the Pakistan-backed Pakhtun Taliban in the 1990s, now enjoy greater representation in Hamid Karzai’s administration and the nation’s security forces.
Having said that, I believe recrimination and acrimony between the two countries will serve no purpose. Instead, this will strain the already frayed relations between the two neighbours and alienate their peoples. The two nations should take steps to bridge this gulf of mistrust and unite against their common foe, terrorism, or else the region will sink further in instability and peace will elude the two countries even after 2014.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 8th, 2011.
Maulana Sufi — who was the octogenarian chief of Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi and the father-in-law of radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah — was detained after his son-in-law and his followers were routed in a military operation in Swat district in 2009. Fazlullah was the driving force behind a bloody campaign for the enforcement of what can be euphemistically called medieval Islam in the region. Some of his close aides were killed or captured, but Fazlullah ‘disappeared’ before the troops took over his headquarters of Ghat Peochar. He remained missing until late last year when he surfaced in the Afghan province of Nuristan.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters who had fled military operations in Malakand division — including the districts of Swat, Dir (Upper and Lower) and Buner — and Bajaur Agency have now ganged up in the neighbouring Afghan province of Kunar. They are led by senior Pakistani Taliban cadres like Maulana Fazlullah, Qari Ziaur Rahman, Maulvi Faqir, Noor Muhammad Shino and Taur Mullah and aided by their ideological affiliates in Afghanistan, including al Qaeda.
US troops vacated all combat posts in Kunar and Nuristan over the last couple of years. And now the Afghan National Army (ANA) is in charge of security there. Pakistani officials believe the fugitive Taliban insurgents have a support network in Afghanistan. This is understandable, given the growing anti-Pakistan feeling among the Afghans, who blame Islamabad for the current mess in their war-torn country. Afghan officials accuse Pakistan’s spy agencies for the recent phenomenal surge in violence in Afghanistan, particularly in the hitherto peaceful provinces of Takhar and Heart. The Pakistani Taliban deny official backing in Afghanistan and insist that they are in control of Kunar and Nuristan. But Pakistan’s suspicion is not completely misplaced. Reason: Ethnic minorities in Afghanistan — Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras — who had formed the Northern Alliance to fight the Pakistan-backed Pakhtun Taliban in the 1990s, now enjoy greater representation in Hamid Karzai’s administration and the nation’s security forces.
Having said that, I believe recrimination and acrimony between the two countries will serve no purpose. Instead, this will strain the already frayed relations between the two neighbours and alienate their peoples. The two nations should take steps to bridge this gulf of mistrust and unite against their common foe, terrorism, or else the region will sink further in instability and peace will elude the two countries even after 2014.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 8th, 2011.