People’s Daily Onine | 10 June 2010

Pakistan nods affirmative for North Waziristan operation

In the fast developing scenario where the certain subsequent events have boiled the mercury in Obama administration once again to insist on Pakistan hitting terrorists strongholds in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan’s top officials have given an affirmative nod to the start of operation in North Waziristan.

“Our next priority is going to be North Waziristan, but we have to time our operations in line with our resources,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Wednesday.

“At the moment we are consolidating our position in South Waziristan,” he stated during a visit to Turkey while emphasizing that Pakistan’s next priority in the fight against the insurgent Taliban is North Waziristan.

“The cat is out of the bag,” Arshi Saleem, senior research analyst at the Institute of Regional Studies in Islamabad, told Xinhua on Thursday while commenting on the long rumored myth of the possibility of a military operation in North Waziristan.

Pakistani military chief General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani in his recent visit to the tribal areas had declared victory in some parts of the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan against insurgent militants in continuing operations in South Waziristan tribal areas.

Analysts believe that the victory declaration mean an affirmative nod to the imminent operation in the North Waziristan’ s tribal areas as much desired by the United States for long while winding up the chapter in South Waziristan.

“Certainly, it will give another reason to think fast about cleaning up of the mess in North Waziristan,” Arshi Saleem, an Afghan Affairs and Counter Terrorism expert with IRS, commented while referring to Tuesday midnight terror attack on a NATO supply convoy near Pakistani capital Islamabad that killed eight and destroyed 60 trucks.

Punjabi Taliban, a splinter group of disbanded Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which is associated with Al-Qaeda, had claimed the responsibility for the attack. On May 28, nearly 100 people including worshippers, policemen and others, were killed in twin suicide attacks in the eastern city of Lahore. Punjabi Taliban and another Al-Qaeda-affiliated group had accepted the responsibility for these terror attacks.

“We might see some explosions here and there that would be justification enough to start the operation and convince the tribals as well as the media,” said Arshi Saleem, who is also on the faculty of the National Defense University (NDU) in Islamabad.

Pakistani military has already been badly stretched conducting an operation in South Waziristan in the restive Pakistani tribal belt bordering Afghanistan while keeping a massive presence on the eastern border with India.

According to reports, among the total 19 divisions of some 500, 000-plus armed forces of Pakistan, seven to eight divisions are currently engaged in counter-terrorism. Its two divisions are in South Waziristan, one in North Waziristan, two in Swat and Dir and other areas of the Islamic state that has long been experiencing extremist militancy.

Putting aside the possibility of an imminent full-scale operation in North Waziristan while supporting his former colleagues, the defense and security analyst Major General (retired) Jamshed Ayaz told Xinhua, “No, I doubt it. The army chief does not want it.”

Pakistani military Genreal Kayani told Obama administration in end-March that Pakistani will not launch a “stream roller” operation in North Waziristan.

Analysts believe that it would not be possible for Pakistan to absolutely prevent incidents of terrorism, which could be individuals in nature or involving the unbridled non-state actors, from terrorizing the 170 million Pakistanis with off-and-on suicide bombings across the South Asian nuclear state, thus, providing all reasons to the U.S. side, the most important ally of Pakistan in the war against terror, to switch on a massive offensive in North Waziristan.

North Waziristan is known to be unconquered due to its difficult terrain and resultant poor economy which make its war lords vulnerable to moneyed foreign and local militants that have been seeking refuge there after escaping from South Waziristan.

Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan, and Mir Ali are reported to be the strongholds of Al- Qaeda that include TTP, Punjabi Talibans from south Punjab province, who mainly work under the flag of “Lashkar-e-Jhangvi” (a disbanded Sunni extremist outfit), and foreign militants including Chechens, Uzbeks and Arabs.

North Waziristan is inhabited by Wazir and Dawar tribes. Both Siraj Haqqani and Hafiz Gul Bahadur are Wiziris while another militant Maulana Sadiq Noor who is allied to TTP is from Dawar tribe.

Analysts believe that it would be quite interesting to watch this mercurial situation with the following questions: What would be the operation aimed at in North Waziristan? What would happen if the possible operation would be directed against Al-Qaeda and the Punjabi Taliban? And how their comrades would react within Pakistani cities if the fugitive Punjabi and sectarian militants were targeted in the tribal areas? Why the strongholds of Punjabi Taliban so far have not been raided? It might lead to some debate and conclusions as the events unfold in the days to come.

Source: Xinhua