How do you solve a problem like Waziristan?

02/11/2009

Focus remains on Afghanistan but could the solution lie in the badlands of Waziristan?

Lord Curzon, once Viceroy of India, knew just how messy the great game of empire in Central Asia could be. At the turn of the last century the statesman fantasised about flattening the rebellious tribesmen of Waziristan, a troublesome province in the north west of Britain’s jewel in the crown. “No patchwork scheme will settle the Waziristan problem. Not until the military steamroller has passed over the country from end to end will there be peace. But I do not want to be the person to start that machine,” said Lord Curzon.

Today, the Pakistani army is steamrolling through South Waziristan – nominally its own territory – in an effort to gain control over the Taliban militants who currently dominate the mountainous badlands. The offensive follows recent terror attacks by extremists on the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar, and considerable pressure from the Americans who have been dangling financial aid and demanding their allies get tough. Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik promised: “You will soon see these Taliban, these hired guns, fleeing.”

The surge marks a new engagement with Barack Obama’s ‘Af-Pak’ policy, which pins fresh hope for success in Afghanistan by cracking down hard on militant networks on both sides of the notoriously porous border. But if squeezing the Taliban from all directions seems to make sense, then why has it taken so long for Pakistan to send the tanks in?   
   
Unsurprisingly, US drone strikes on villages and compounds in Waziristan suspected of housing terrorists has not played well with many Pakistani politicians or the population in general.

Soldiers entering Waziristan from the south are being met by tens of thousands of villagers, now made refugees. Children have been heard singing songs about “the beautiful Taliban”. These torn loyalties only begin to illustrate the complex politics of the tribal territories along the border.

It is not a region in which any central government has ever held much sway. There are formal agreements acknowledging the tribal
region’s semi-autonomous nature and the socially conservative elders have traditionally been able to impose their own understanding of Sharia law. North Waziristan is controlled chiefly by the Wazir tribe and South Waziristan is dominated by the Mehsuds. It is against this backdrop that an identifiably Pakistani Taliban has emerged in recent years.  
   
Here’s where it gets complicated. After 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, many Taliban fighters and al-Qaeda operatives stole across the border to regroup in a haven cut off from interference from either Kabul or Islamabad. Mullah Omar, head of the Afghan Taliban, and his affiliate Jalaluddin Haqqani found a good deal of support in Wazir areas of the province.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (the TTP or Pakistani Taliban) then began to form around the Mehsuds as the Pakistani military conducted its first incursions into their tribal area in the search for al-Qaeda. Native leader Hakimullah Mehsud (like his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud) believes in both insurgency against central government and the battle against Nato forces in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani army has learned about the fluid nature of co-operation between these groups the hard way. It suffered heavy losses at the hands of militants during concerted assaults in 2004 at the edges of Waziristan. In the years since they have learned to play the divide and rule game, making deals and signing formal peace agreements with various factions in order to strike at specified leadership strongholds.

Since Mullah Omar began urging Hakimullah Mehsud and the Pakistan Taliban to stop its war with Islamabad and concentrate on western forces in Afghanistan, a clear gap has opened up. It should not be surprising, therefore, that Pakistan is limiting its current mission to destroying the Mehsuds and making great efforts to keep other groups onside.       

“The vast majority of Pakistan still sees the Afghan Taliban in a different, more positive light than the Pakistani Taliban.” says Anatol Lieven, Professor of War Studies at King’s College London. “The Afghan Taliban is seen as gravely flawed but fighting for the liberation of their country.”

Lieven explains that many different peoples along the Af-Pak border, stretching into Baluchistan, south of Waziristan, are unified by an ethnic Pashtun heritage: “Pakistan will be very hesitant because the last thing they want is to set off a wider Pashtun rebellion on their soil. They’ve also become wary because almost everything they do is not quite enough for Americans, who they believe will always set new conditions for financial assistance.

“They’ll wait and see what Obama’s policy becomes because there’s no point in creating all this trouble for themselves if America is
considering leaving Afghanistan.”

Little wonder the Pakistani army has set clear and limited goals, focusing on hitting TTP/Mehsud towns such as Makeen and Tiarza. The US and UK, holding on to a larger nation-building project, are likely to be disappointed if they expect a big push on the Afghan Taliban further north.

So will Pakistan’s assault have any positive spin-off for British and American troops across the border? Lieven believes the operation could have limited benefit by disrupting supply lines, but sounds a cautious note. “We’re a little too fond of suggesting all it takes is for Pakistan to get tough and everything will get sorted out. In fact, we’ve got to get it right in Afghanistan, which it seems we can’t do at the moment. Pakistan can help, but it can’t solve the problem.”

The military had a relatively successful campaign in the Swat Valley (north of Waziristan) earlier this year, but many insurgents were only driven elsewhere. What if Pakistani Taliban fighters now disappear into Afghanistan? “If people come over the border, Nato forces have to be prepared to capture or kill them, but for the last eight years we’ve done a lousy job of doing that,” says Lieven. “We’d look bloody silly if we were unable to uphold our side of the bargain and they disappeared into the villages of Afghanistan.”

Waziristan, it seems, is the pole star of an almighty muddle involving several major military powers and a few highly capable non-state actors. Paul Moorcraft, a former military instructor at Sandhurst and adviser to the Ministry of Defence, is in no doubt about the province’s importance, but has become dubious about intervention in the region.

“Everyone is consumed by Hamid Karzai’s election in Afghanistan, but I think what’s happening in Waziristan could have a much more important impact,” says Moorcraft, who once travelled with the Afghan mujahidin during their war against Soviet occupiers in the 1980s.

“This is tough terrain and there are a lot of torn loyalties and other unforeseeable side issues which make it tough for the Pakistanis,” he continues. “They’ve never held more than the roads in that region, and they’ll struggle to hold the ground. The operation could work in the short term, if only in a narrow region. But there are always unintended consequences and trouble stirred up elsewhere. They won’t want to touch Baluchistan, where more of the Afghan Taliban sit, for all sorts of reasons.”

Moorcraft is one of a growing number of commentators who believes western forces have no clear sense of purpose, and that attempts to control resentments and inevitable realignments among insurgents are doomed to failure.

“I have fantastic respect for the British forces, who have fought incredibly bravely, but we simply shouldn’t be in Afghanistan. It’s a war we cannot win. The longer we stay the more we provoke trouble in tribal areas and borderlands like Waziristan. We can’t do it tomorrow, but we have to get out of there as soon as possible,” says Moorcraft.

It is more than a century since Lord Curzon dreamed of “exterminating the brutes” of the north-west frontier province (to borrow a phrase from Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness). Short of choosing the steamroller option or ordering a full retreat, the civilizing powers will be left meddling and muddling through with the consequences.

By Adam Forrest