ISLAMABAD — Since the Pakistani army launched a long-awaited
offensive last month to destroy the Taliban in South Waziristan, many militants
have fled to nearby districts and begun to establish new strongholds, a
strategy that suggests they will regroup and remain a potent threat to the
country’s weak, U.S.-backed government.
Pakistani Taliban militants have escaped primarily to Kurram
and Orakzai, districts outside the battle zone but still within Pakistan’s
largely ungoverned tribal areas along the Afghan border, villagers there say.
The military lacks a significant presence in much of these areas, making them
an ideal environment for the Islamic militants to regroup.
Newly arrived militants have terrorized Pashtun residents
and replenished their coffers through kidnappings and robberies, villagers said
during interviews in the Kurram and Orakzai districts. With AK-47s and rocket
launchers slung over their shoulders, the militants have begun patrols through
the new territory and have set up checkpoints.
“They come to our houses and terrorize us,” said
Fareed Ullah, a student in Weedara, a hamlet of mud-walled huts in central
Kurram. “They are kidnapping our elders and stealing our cars. We have no
way of rising up against them, and there’s no government here to help us. …
Kurram is in trouble because of them.”
Pakistani military commanders say that after five weeks of
fighting, they are in the final stages of their offensive aimed at crushing
Islamic insurgents in South Waziristan, a rugged expanse of mountains and
plateaus that for years has served as the primary base of operations for the
Pakistani Taliban and as a sanctuary for al-Qaida fighters.
When the offensive began Oct. 17, Pakistani military leaders
said they faced a fighting force of as many as 10,000 battle-hardened
militants. Thus far, however, the army has put the number of militants killed
at 500.
None of the Pakistani Taliban’s top leaders has been
reported captured or killed. And accounts from villagers in nearby districts
suggest that many militants simply fled South Waziristan.
The 30,000 troops involved in the South Waziristan offensive
have reported taking control of almost all the villages and roads once held
there by Taliban militants. At the start of the offensive, military commanders
and government leaders said they wanted to wrap up the operation before winter
set in. They now say they are on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule.
In some cases, Pakistani troops met fierce resistance from
Taliban militants and al-Qaeda-allied Uzbek fighters as they advanced on
villages such as Kotkai and Sararogha, a key nerve center for the Pakistani
Taliban. In many places, however, troops found that Taliban and al-Qaida
militants had already left.
Army leaders say dislodging Taliban and al-Qaida fighters
from their strongholds may be enough to neutralize them.
“Once dislodged, they will be disorganized,” said
Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. “Their actions will not
have that kind of coordination which was displayed when they were attacking our
cities and towns.”
However, militants have succeeded in engineering a
devastating string of terrorist attacks on Pakistani cities that has coincided
with the offensive. Especially hard hit has been Peshawar, a northwestern city
of with a population of almost 3 million on the fringe of Pakistan’s volatile
tribal areas. More than 245 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in
10 bomb attacks in the largely Pashtun city since early October. Authorities
believe militants fleeing South Waziristan to their new havens far closer to
Peshawar are probably behind many of the attacks.
Taliban and al-Qaida militants were able to easily flee
South Waziristan, experts say, because government and military leaders
announced their intent to carry out a major offensive in the region weeks
before troops moved in. That gave militants ample time to make their escape.
“The strategy has been bad,” said Imtiaz Gul, a
security analyst based in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. “You don’t
carry out operations after making such announcements. This area gives them huge
space for mobility. So when crunch time comes, they can disperse to safer
places, regroup, reorganize and hit the state somewhere else.”
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The Obama administration has said it is pleased with gains
made by the Pakistani military against the Taliban in South Waziristan. But
American officials have nonetheless questioned Pakistan’s resolve to find and
eliminate al-Qaida leaders and commanders believed to have been hiding there.
Villagers in Kurram and Orakzai, as well as two
Orakzai-based Taliban commanders, say al-Qaida-aligned Arab, Chechen and Uzbek
fighters from South Waziristan are now in their villages.
“From their faces we can see they are foreigners,”
said Jaleel Rahman, a Pashtun of the village of Marghan in central Kurram.
“Sometimes they speak in Arabic, sometimes in English. Their leaders stay
at the houses of influential people in our area. And we can’t do anything about
it.”
Almost always, militants fleeing South Waziristan arrive at
night in large groups piled into Toyota Land Cruisers and pickup trucks,
villagers say. The newcomers have established hide-outs in the foothills and
mountains skirting the villages, and have been seen digging trenches in
mountainsides. Without any troops to confront them, they freely roam through
villages, demanding money, food and guns.
“They are in the hundreds here,” said Sher
Muhammad, a tribesman in the village of Tandar in central Kurram. “They
tell us to do what they do. And whatever they like, they get by force.”
Both the Orakzai and Kurram districts had large sections
controlled by Pakistani Taliban militants before fighters from South Waziristan
began appearing. However, the Taliban presence in those districts wasn’t
considered as large as the militant group’s forces in South Waziristan, long
considered the hub for terrorism in Pakistan.
Maulana Zainul Abideen, a Pakistani Taliban commander in the
Orakzai region, said during an interview in his village of Dabori that locals
have set aside empty houses for fellow militants and their families arriving
from South Waziristan.
“They accompany us wherever we go on patrol,”
Abideen said. “They contacted our elders, and our elders allowed them to
come here.”
Another Taliban commander in the Orakzai region, Mufti
Khursheed, said the fleeing militants had to agree they would not “carry
out any activity without us, would have to patrol with us and would join us
wherever we need them. They will not take any step without our permission.”
Pakistani fighter jets and helicopter gunships have stepped
up airstrikes on suspected Taliban hide-outs in Orakzai and Kurram, military
leaders say. But analysts say that may not be enough. Once South Waziristan is
secured, some say, a ground offensive either in Orakzai or Kurram may be needed
to keep the Taliban from establishing strongholds there on a par with what it
had in South Waziristan. The military says it plans to keep a sizable troop
presence in South Waziristan to hold the ground gained, just as it did in its
previous Swat Valley offensive.
“The militants have the capacity to regroup and come
back,” said retired Gen. Talat Masood, an Islamabad-based defense analyst.
“They should not be allowed to consolidate. … South Waziristan has been
a tactical success of sorts, but by no means is it a victory.”
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
