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Failing to ‘liberalise’ Pakistan and Afghanistan frontiers

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: It was just before dawn when the residents of Chinagai, a small border village in the Bajaur tribal area, woke up to a thunderous blast. Then came three more explosions in quick succession. The missile attack reduced a local seminary known as Madrassa Ziaul Uloom to a huge pile of rubble. Some 85 people died—including several children—in the single deadliest operation launched by Pakistani forces against suspected militants in the country’s lawless tribal region. Pakistani military officials said the madrassa was being used to train suicide bombers for attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to a report published in Newsweek International.

The missile strike provoked a strong backlash in the border region and exposed a troubling reality for President Pervez Musharraf: he has run out of options in the fight against rampant radicalism along his country’s rugged western border. Thousands of armed Pashtuns took to the streets in Bajaur to protest the attack, and the demonstrations spilled over to parts of North West Frontier Province, which is ruled by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). Islamists, angered by the rumour that US military drones had bombed the Chinagai madrassa, whipped up anti-American sentiments in the region. “It has basically provided a propaganda tool to Taliban and Pakistani Islamists to gain sympathy,” says Samina Ahmed, country director of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

A senior Pakistani security official called the bombing a “major counter-terrorist operation” carried out on the basis of intelligence provided by the Americans. US drones had picked up unusual activity—roughly 100 men undergoing some kind of guerrilla training in the compound. A high-resolution camera also detected a middle-aged bearded man delivering a lecture to the trainees. US and Pakistani intelligence officials suspected he could be Qaeda No 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri or fellow jihadist Abu Al Obaida Al Misri. The two Qaeda leaders had regularly visited the mountainous region, only 15 kilometres from the Afghan border. (Misri is believed to be the mastermind behind a plot this summer to blow up several jetliners flying out of London’s Heathrow airport.) But there has been no indication yet that any Qaeda operatives were killed in the strike.

Musharraf has switched tactics in trying to deal with the Islamists along the border, alternating from military action to peace deals and now, apparently, back to armed force. Neither approach has worked. At the heart of Musharraf’s predicament is the failure of his plan to pacify pro-Taliban tribesmen in Waziristan with a peace accord. In September the Pakistani government signed a controversial truce agreement, ending a three-year-long military campaign in troubled North Waziristan in return for a pledge by tribal leaders not to give shelter to foreign fighters. But in effect, the deal only empowered the local Taliban, who have been actively involved in the Afghan insurgency.

Musharraf made the deal under pressure from his Army, which had grown disenchanted with the occupation of North Waziristan and a lack of progress in pacifying the region. Around 700 soldiers have been killed in the area, and at least six middle-ranking army officers have been court-martialed for refusing to fight.

Pakistani officials argue that the ceasefire should create the conditions for economic development in Waziristan and elsewhere. Islamabad plans to invest millions of dollars in improving infrastructure, as well as the health and education systems, in the tribal areas, which may also help to create jobs for the tribesmen. Poverty is the fuel for militancy in the border regions. Less than 30 percent of the tribesmen attend school of any kind. And of those who do, 90 percent drop out of primary school.

But Musharraf’s policy of appeasement does not seem to be working. Far from taming the cross-border violence, the Waziristan truce appears to have contributed to deteriorating conditions in the eastern Afghan border provinces of Khowst, Paktia and Paktika. US and Afghan officials maintain that the truce has made it easier for militants to send fighters and weapons across the border. “How can one expect to carry out any development work in this situation?” asks Hasan Askari Rizvi, an author and columnist for The Daily Times.

The ICG’s Ahmed says Musharraf’s policy swings are “counterproductive.” What might work? Maybe nothing, say experts. Any further military operation in the border areas could split the Army. And left alone, the Islamists continue to pursue jihad. Caught between the almost medieval religious fanaticism of the Islamists, a disenchanted Army and the pressing Americans, Musharraf is in a very tight spot indeed.

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