Afghanistan

  The current Pakistani incarnation of the Taliban and other Pushtun insurgent movements emerged in the Vortex as a result of the intermingling of radicalized Pakistani Pushtuns with the original Afghan Taliban. Once the main “circuit cable” of international Islamic terrorism was plugged in to the FATA, enough money could be brought in to change power in the region. The Pakistani insurgents are also heavily influenced by Al Qaeda and their foreign allies, possibly even more so than their Afghan counterparts. Uzbeks, Uighurs, and Chechens brought their own brand of desperation and ruthlessness after being expelled from Afghanistan. The Uzbeks alone are estimated at 1–2,000 strong, many of them veterans of fighting with the Afghan Taliban in that country’s civil wars. Arabs in the region both manage and use the network of “safe houses” that extend throughout Pakistan, houses that provide hiding places, weapons caches, and secure planning and organizing. Kashmiri groups have trained in the border area for decades, and their members also joined forces with the different Pakistani insurgent groups. Large numbers of Punjabis and Sindhis were carrying Kalashnikovs in this new conflict. Many of these Pakistani insurgents had fought in Afghanistan or in Kashmir against India, and they had contacts with the Pakistani security services, were well-versed in guerrilla warfare, and had worked with a broad range of criminal groups. They had access to the networks established by the ISI and other Pakistani security services, as well as links to Pakistani religious groups. Many Pakistani insurgent groups have benefited from the support of Punjabi groups, such as the anti-Shia Sipah-e-Sahaba, who have been fighting in Afghanistan alongside the original Afghan Taliban since the 1990s, where together they had committed numerous atrocities against Hazaras and other Afghan Shias. Other recruits to the insurgency came from the ranks of groups that had been concentrating on the insurgency in Kashmir, which continued until the Musharraf government initiated talks with India and agreed to stop invasive violence and other offensive action by 2003.

  Pakistan helped enable the US and coalition intervention in Afghanistan. Musharraf broke relations with the Afghan Taliban government and withdrew its ISI officers and other Pakistani supporters that had been taking part in supporting their war against Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance. Pakistan provided the coalition with bases and permitted overflights and shared some intelligence. It moved additional forces to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to backstop fleeing Taliban and Al Qaeda members, although those of Afghan or Pakistani nationality were not usually taken into custody.376

  The years following the US intervention in Afghanistan saw the rise of insurgent leader Nek Mohammed, a Pakistani Wazir who had fought in Afghanistan with the Afghan Taliban and had close contact with Al Qaeda leaders in Waziristan. When Al Qaeda fled over the border in 2001–02, Nek Mohammed welcomed them into Waziristan. The links with the Afghan Taliban and the foreigners provided Nek Mohammed with the ability to start consolidating political power in Waziristan. He was soon joined by other insurgent leaders among South Waziristan’s Wazir and Mehsud tribesmen. Among these was Abdullah Mehsud, a one-legged veteran of Afghanistan’s civil wars who had been held prisoner by the US. He rose to command a large force of insurgents before killing himself during a Pakistani police raid in July 2007. Another figure to emerge was Behtullah Mehsud, who had good contacts with Al Qaeda while fighting in Afghanistan and made a fortune running a mule taxi service over the mountains for fugitive terrorists.

  These emerging insurgent leaders’ willingness to use violence against secular Pushtun authority in Pakistan started in the FATA’s South Waziristan agency, but spread throughout the FATA and then into Baluchistan and to the NWFP. Throughout Waziristan, tribal maliks were murdered in large numbers, especially by Al Qaeda’s Uzbek allies. By targeting the tribal leadership, the insurgents gained support of current tribal leaderships’ internal rivals, the “tribal entrepreneurs” who could offer influence (if mullahs) or money (if traders) and the members of the trading mafias. For all the previous decades of political unrest and undercutting of traditional authority by Pakistan’s policies, the widespread campaign of the murder of Pushtun leaders was previously unheard of since the Khalqis attempted the same thing on the Afghan side of the Durand Line in 1978–79 and provoked large-scale armed resistance. By killing these men, the insurgents expanded the vacuum in authority in the FATA that had already been increasing for decades.

  Pakistan’s initial attempts to deal with this terrorism in the FATA relied on lightly armed khassadar tribal police and, only after they failed, by the Frontier Corps. On a number of occasions, when the Pakistani authorities tried to form traditional tribal lashkars (armed groups) to oppose Pakistani insurgents in the FATA, they deserted while hanging on to their weapons. The political agents that represented the government in the FATA paid subsidies to maliks and other local leaders to try to keep the peace. Outside the FATA, the 2002 local government reforms have made it hard to act quickly and decisively against any terrorist challenges to state authority. The paramilitary Frontier Constabulary and the Frontier Police, the NWFP’s provincial police, were inadequately armed and poorly trained to confront murderous veterans of Afghanistan’s wars.377 Applying any sort of force against insurgent groups operating in the NWFP required the cooperation of the provincial government, which was usually not forthcoming, especially after the MMA took control of the provincial government in the 2002 election. And so, governmental authority quickly eroded in much of the FATA and NWFP within a few short years after the Afghan Taliban’s retreat into Pakistan.

  The Frontier Corps, intended to keep the peace on the frontier, consists of Pushtuns serving outside their home areas led by seconded army officers, often non-Pushtuns. Some 80,000 strong, it is divided into separate forces for the NWFP and Baluchistan. Equipped only with light weapons, they were outgunned by the insurgents, who had access to world markets. The Pakistani insurgents, through their alliance with Al Qaeda, had access to worldwide sources of funding that allowed them to out-buy the government of Pakistan for local allegiances. The Frontier Corps, under the command of the Ministry of the Interior, is a “limited liability” political force, intended for an “economy of force” presence in the FATA.378 The politicization and then the radicalization of the Frontier Corps had started in the 1980s. Involving this force in Pakistan’s strategy toward Afghanistan was beyond its capability and an invitation for a blowback effect of unanticipated results.379 The Frontier Corps had been asked to provide support to the ISI and other Pakistani security services’ Afghan proxies, initially HiH but later the “Afghan Arabs” and the Afghan Taliban. This put them in contact with the Islamic radical support infrastructure in the Vortex. Throughout the course of fighting with Pakistan’s insurgents, the Frontier Corps has often proved more willing to turn over its arms to them than fight pitched battles against them, and has sometimes joined with them to fire on US troops in Afghanistan.380

  After 2001, the idea of a Pakistani Taliban became more than a general expression of radicalized Pushtun solidarity. The pre-existing group, called Tehrik-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammed (TNSM), was inspired by Al Qaeda escapees from Afghanistan, the consolidation of Islamic radical power in South Waziristan, and aimed to achieve similar results in the Bajaur Agency, which was their stronghold, adjacent to Afghanistan’s war-torn Kunar valley.381 The TNSM had been formed in the 1990s as an offshoot of JI and had spent years recruiting Pakistanis to go fight with the Afghan Taliban in the civil war and, later, to fight the Americans. In 2001, the TNSM sent large numbers of madrassa students to defend the Taliban regime in what became known as “The Children’s Crusade.” Few returned alive. The result contributed to the radicalization of Pakistani Pushtun tribes that had provided these new “martyrs.” Other insurgent groups appeared in the NWFP, taking advantage of the weak governmental authority and aimed to spread the radicalization already controlling South Waziristan. Mangal Bagh Afridi organized the Lashkar-e-Islam, a radical insurgent group espousing violent opposition to the Sufic religious practices of many Pushtun
s. This group has links to narcotics trafficking and operates throughout the NWFP. Qazi Mahbub-ul Haq organized the Ansar-ul-Islam in the NWFP’s Tirah district. This group set up Sharia courts in the areas it controlled. It soon became a rival of Lashkar-e-Islam, opposing their anti-Sufic violence.382 Plans to overthrow Pakistan’s government were reportedly drafted as early as 2003, with the seizure of Swat intended to provide an interim headquarters on their way to Islamabad.383

  The Insurgency Spreads, 2004—07

  The Pakistani military did not move against the Pakistani insurgents in their formative stages. Rather, the Pakistani Army saw them, much like they had seen the Afghan Taliban, as a controllable strategic asset. The Pakistani military hoped that these groups would join the Afghan Taliban fighting in Afghanistan and not threaten Pakistan. Even after large numbers of maliks had been murdered, the army hesitated to act. They were focused on the primacy of the military threat from India, especially in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament that raised tensions.

  It was not until March 2004 that the Pakistan Army, at US urging, moved into South Waziristan to help quell the growing insurgency. Yet by the time the army arrived in South Waziristan for this “coercive deployment,” it was evident that the initial Pakistani government response was inadequate. While fighting in Waziristan, the Pakistani army, trained and equipped for conventional conflict with India, demonstrated a profound lack of capacity for counter-insurgency warfare. Counter-insurgency was not taught at Pakistani staff colleges. The army leadership, predominantly Punjabi, lacked an understanding of the culture and politics of South Waziristan. The land was remote and foreign even to most of the ethnic Pushtun officers in the army, who may have known the language but not the area’s complexities (the British Indian Army would not recruit Wazir Pushtuns back in the days of the Empire because they were too independent, and to this day the tribe lacks the traditions of government service that have been important to Pushtuns elsewhere, but not there). In 2004, Musharraf introduced local representative assemblies to the FATA, which had already been set up in the rest of the country four years earlier, but with more restricted powers and fewer seats reserved for women as concessions to the conservatism of the Pushtun population. Rather than acting as a stabilizing force, these assemblies were seen as an attempt to further undercut the preexisting system of governance and impose institutions alien to local customs and traditions. The attitude of many Pakistan Army officers was that the campaign in Waziristan was taking Musharraf’s promise to cooperate with the US “Global War on Terrorism” too far.384

  The March 2004 Pakistani military offensive in South Waziristan did not succeed in reestablishing governmental control. All the elements of the old control system—the maliks, political agents, khassadars, tribal levies, the Frontier Corps—had been uprooted. Many Pushtuns had become radicalized and sympathized with the insurgents.385 Pakistani religious parties urged negotiations, especially the JUI, with links to both the insurgents and the national and NWFP and Baluchistan provincial governments through their participation in the MMA political coalition.386 The continued military setbacks led to a truce and subsequent peace agreement between the insurgents in Waziristan and Pakistani authorities in April 2004. Nek Mohammed said “I did not surrender, they came to me.” His view was widely accepted in Pakistan: it was the army that had given in.

  The April 2004 South Waziristan peace agreement was the first in the cycle of localized cease-fires and attempts to co-opt insurgents which really has only allowed them to run even more rampant. The truces with the army provided the insurgents with a degree of legitimacy in the eyes of the people. If the army would negotiate with them, they were obviously not outlaws and could be accepted as part of Pakistani society. Most Afghans were convinced the Waziristan deal would not work from the start and would only cause them more grief. Rather, they saw this agreement as an attempt to secure peace in Pakistan by focusing the insurgents on fighting in Afghanistan. In the words of Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, it was perceived that “The Army is willing to pull back, surrender sovereignty to the Pakistani Taliban. The agreements say, do not fight us, fight the US in Afghanistan, and fight NATO.”387 That was something the insurgents proceeded to do. Infiltration of guerrillas into Afghanistan reportedly increased 300 percent after the first South Waziristan agreement.388

  Since its original negotiations with the insurgents in Waziristan, the army has mostly kept their part of their bargains. Pakistan did not block US Predator UAV attacks against the insurgent leadership. When the Pakistani army moved back into South Waziristan in June 2004, it was to target Chechens, Uzbeks, and Arabs operating in the Shakani valley. This was followed by a further peace agreement with the Pakistani insurgents in South Waziristan in November 2004, although this proved short-lived.389 Following these truces with the army, however, the insurgency in Pakistan acquired a momentum of its own. The insurgents set up a de facto parallel government that ruled South Waziristan, imposing their version of Sharia law, beheading “spies” and imposing strict Taliban-style social controls, requiring beards and banning music and DVDs. This was copied by other insurgents throughout the FATA, starting in 2004 and spreading to Bannu and Tank by 2007, and Sharia courts followed insurgents into Swat in 2008–09. By 2004, the insurgent movement was no longer limited to the FATA, but was targeting parts of NWFP, especially the Swat valley. Despite the lack of a central command, the insurgency in Pakistan was able to use the pre-existing contacts and networks between different tribes and agencies to their advantage, acquiring and moving money, weapons, and supplies. The TNSM, operating in Bajaur and Swat, was motivated to more openly challenge the Pakistani authorities by the insurgent success in Waziristan.

  All these insurgent actions gave an aura of success to the Waziristan insurgency’s new leader, Behtullah Mehsud, then in his transition from mule driver to charismatic commander following the death of Nek Muhammed in a US Predator UAV attack in June 2004, just a week after his ceasefire with the government went into effect. With the vacuum caused by the death of Nek Mohammed and with the erosion of Pakistan’s state control over the FATA, Behtullah Mehsud was able to extend his authority across tribal lines. There was also an increasing tempo of insurgent activity in the FATA, as shown by the kidnapping of Chinese telecommunications engineers by Abdullah Mehsud in October 2004.390

  Behtullah Mehsud led the insurgents in an offensive against established leadership in the FATA, unimpeded by the 2004 truces. His leadership of South Waziristan’s insurgents appeared acknowledged by a further peace agreement with the army in February 2004. In 2005–06 alone, some 200 Pushtun secular leaders were murdered.391 In 2006, Behtullah Mehsud opened an expanded terrorist campaign in Pakistan, using suicide bombers, which an expanded recruitment and training effort allowed him to sustain for years.392 In 2007, a jirga of tribal leaders in NWFP were attacked by one of the seemingly limitless number of largely non-Pushtun teenage suicide bombers collected from Pakistan’s madrassas and controlled by Behtullah Mehsud. In other areas, the insurgents were able to offer money and guns to support local allies. The insurgent-established Sharia courts offered a rough frontier justice, mainly targeting common criminals and informers, but also resolving property disputes. Local governance through jirgas was banned, and the Pakistani government was kept out by roadblocks.

  The October 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan created much damage and demonstrated the inability of the government to help the victims. Islamic non-governmental organizations, some of them associated with radical groups, provided the most effective relief work. The insurgents were able to take advantage of some of the good will among the population that this created.

  All of the insurgent groups shared links to radical parties elsewhere in Pakistan, often providing greater access to communications and media. Behtullah Mehsud’s well-known DVDs of executions helped solidify his control over South Waziristan by adding to his already formidable reputation for ruthlessness. The strength of th
e Taliban culture in the FATA was demonstrated by Mullah Fazlullah, the TNSM “Radio Mullah,” who made effective use of FM radio broadcasts in 2007 to almost completely halt polio vaccinations in Swat and the Bajaur agency by reporting that vaccines were an impotency serum created by the West intended to wipe out Muslims. The Pakistani insurgents, as with the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani extremist groups, have benefited from new advances in media technology, by using propaganda DVDs, both legal and illegal FM radio stations, and, more recently, satellite television broadcasting.

  In 2007, there were reportedly 14 to 16 Taliban groups operating in Pakistan with no cohesive unity or command structure, but they did share common objectives of defeating the foreign coalition presence in Afghanistan and overthrowing the government in Pakistan. One of the major shared objectives of these groups was blocking or extracting funds by not blocking Pakistan-Afghanistan trade routes. Some groups aimed at the main route from Karachi to Kabul, on which the US-led military coalition presence in Afghanistan depends as the only major port available to them. Some 14 of these groups—divided by tribe or region in the FATA and NWFP—were pulled together into the Tehrik-e-Taliban-Pakistan (TTP), the umbrella organization for Pakistan’s Taliban, formed in December 2007.393 The TNSM was among these but kept its operational independence. Behtullah Mehsud was acknowledged as the TTP’s leader. Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Wazir insurgent leader from North Waziristan, was appointed as his deputy. A governing shura was established. The TTP followed this up with battlefield success, storming and capturing Sararogha Fort in South Waziristan in January 2008.394 The military responded with a renewed offensive into South Waziristan, aiming to target the TTP leadership. Failing to capture them, the military instead destroyed large numbers of villages, creating over 200,000 internal refugees who were then recruited as supporters by the insurgents.395 But when the offensive ended in May 2008, the army again withdrew from South Waziristan. The government of Pakistan banned the TTP in August 2008, but this had little effect on its operations.396