Global Security: Afghanistan and Pakistan - Foreign Affairs Committee Contents


Submission by Sajjan M. Gohel, Asia-Pacific Foundation

THE AFGHANISTAN—PAKISTAN BORDER AREAS: CHALLENGES, THREATS AND SCENARIOS

SUMMARY

    —  The Pakistan-Afghanistan border region constitutes a significant threat to Western national security interests.—  Undermining Afghan President Karzai's efforts to build a truly national government is the resurgent Taliban, backed by al-Qa'ida and its affiliates, which together are mounting an increasingly virulent insurgency.—  Afghanistan's woes began with outside interference and though the Taliban was dislodged from power in 2001, they were never defeated or dismantled but in fact have proliferated, and this is being fuelled by those who wish to see pro-Taliban and al-Qa'ida elements re-asserting themselves.

    —  The Durrand Line divides the homelands of the Pashtun tribes nearly equally between Afghanistan and Pakistan, effectively cutting the Pashtun nation in half. This largely imaginary boundary has been viewed since its inception with contempt and resentment by Pashtuns on both sides of the line.

    —  The stabilisation of Afghanistan, to a very large extent, depends on the nature of that country's relations with Pakistan. There is an urgent need to resolve the longstanding border dispute and the Pashtunistan issue in order to improve the prospects of counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries.

    —  Forging alliances with Islamist parties and their allies created what has subsequently proven to be an enduring military-mullah nexus in Pakistan's politics which impacts upon Afghanistan.

    —  The security challenge is not a social problem, or a religious problem, or a generic "tribal" problem. It is a unique cultural problem.

    —  Pakistan had gambled for strategic depth in Afghanistan, but had conceded reverse strategic depth to the Taliban in Pakistan and as a result is facing a growing diverse array of threats in recent years to its legitimacy and authority.

    —  The Taliban are proving to be increasingly irrepressible. They seem to be adapting, faster than expected to the challenges confronting them. In terms of propaganda, psyops and operational reach they are proving to be a force to reckon with.

    —  In addition to the Taliban, the Afghan-Pakistan border area has proven particularly vital to other insurgent forces that represent an existential threat to the Karzai regime, a growing threat to the Pakistani government, and an enormous challenge to regional stability.

    —  The Federally Administered Tribal Areas have provided a sanctuary for a growing insurgent network that has struck Afghanistan with a vengeance. It provides base for command and control, fundraising, recruiting, training, and launching and recovery of military operations and terrorist attacks.

    —  There is an urgent need to stop the recruitment and radicalisation process by reforming the madrasas in Pakistan that are most susceptible to the Taliban rhetoric and doctrine.

    —  Any compromise or negotiation with the Taliban in its current form would not be feasible and will completely undermine the building and strengthening of civil institutions in Afghanistan which will result in rival power centres being created.

    —  The terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan that benefits the Taliban will at the same time continue to act as a recruiting ground for young Britons that are being drawn and attracted by the ideology and doctrines that al-Qa'ida and its affiliates articulate.

    —  It is, pertinent that the West further strengthens the position of Kabul, and keeps the military pressure on anti-government groups.

INTRODUCTION

  1.  During the last 36 years Afghanistan has been in perpetual conflict, involving the 1973 communist coup; Soviet invasion; Mujahideen counter-insurgency; Soviet defeat and withdrawal; civil war; repressive Taliban takeover; al-Qa'ida terrorism; the military operation by the US-led coalition following the September 11 attacks and more recently the escalating insurgency by a re-energised Taliban.

2.  Afghanistan, after decades of fighting, has also witnessed watershed democratic elections and important infrastructure rebuilding. While much work still remains to be accomplished, significant progress has been made in improving human rights, political and economic reform, and strengthening of civil institutions.

  3.  However, a number of extremely disturbing countervailing trends are evident. The actual influence and control of the democratically elected government of President Hamid Karzai extends only weakly beyond the outskirts of Kabul; ethno-linguistic fragmentation is on the rise; an increasingly sophisticated insurgency threatens stability; large areas of the country are still ruled by warlords and drug lords and, possibly the most damning for the long-term stabilization of Afghanistan, is that it is fast approaching narco-state status with its opium crop representing a substantial portion of the country's licit GDP. Estimates illustrate that Afghanistan has become practically the exclusive supplier of the world's deadliest drug. Approximately 93% of the world's opium is produced in Afghanistan.1

  4.  Indeed, Karzai's government is encountering extreme difficulty in extending control and mandate outside Kabul, into the country's southern regions. Undermining Karzai's efforts to build a truly national government is the resurgent Taliban, backed by al-Qa'ida and its affiliates, which together are mounting an increasingly virulent insurgency, especially in the east and south, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

  5.  It is difficult to ascertain the damage inflicted upon the Afghan socio-political structure by decades of continuous warfare, which not only destroyed the pre-war elites, but also left massive numbers dead, wounded, or displaced.2 This extended turmoil and hardship set the stage for the rise and entrenchment of Afghanistan as a centre of conflict. At the same time, pre-existing ethnic stratifications and cleavages have further polarized the country, isolate it internationally, and also to insulate its people from most efforts at centralized government.

  6.  Afghanistan's diverse present boundaries were created to serve as a buffer between British and Russian Empires as Afghanistan confronted modernity through its forced integration into a Euro-centric state.3 These were not drawn along ethnic, linguistic, or religious lines. The externally imposed "state" comprised of a complicated mix of people mostly living in small, kin-based communities outside of the limited urban areas. Some of these groups are ethnically and linguistically distinct, but are not necessarily different in terms of culture. Afghanistan's governments have been unable to create a sense of genuine national unity in times other than during crisis.4

  7.  Afghan society is deeply divided along linguistic, sectarian, tribal, and racial lines. The social system is based on communal priorities and emphasizes the importance of local over central authority. Islamic identity, however, does often take precedence over even local sentiment, as demonstrated by the jihad-inspired solidarity against the Soviet invasion.

  8.  The traditional ethnic hierarchy begins with the Pashtuns at the summit; Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmens comprise the middle layers of society; and the Shiite Hazaras have the lowest status. However, the Hazaras are the only major ethnic group whose traditional territory does not overlap with international borders. Afghanistan has a long-standing tradition, facilitated by trans-national ethnic ties, of the movement of people through informal border crossings into Pakistan. These ties have operated in much the same way for centuries, back to when the region was a trading hub in the heyday of the Silk Road.

  9.  Afghanistan's Pashtuns would like a strong Pashtun-run central state; Tajiks focus on power sharing in the central state, and Uzbeks and Hazaras desire recognition of their identities and mechanisms of local government. Historically, the more populous Pashtun tribes of the south have ruled Afghanistan, yet unlike other ethnic groups, the Pashtuns emphasize tribal structures and codes at expense of the state. Not until the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan did other ethnic groups truly establish themselves as a political and military force. In the past, fighting for control of the state had occurred primarily among Pashtuns.

THE PASHTUN DIMENSION

  10.  Among its immediate neighbours, Afghanistan has had tense and strained relations with Pakistan. Much of the history that has shaped the two countries' border area can be traced to colonial fears of the British in India and of Russian encroachment throughout Central Asia, coined as the "Great Game" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

11.  The legacy of this era can be seen in the two countries' border demarcation. The 1879 Treaty of Gandamak, signed in the midst of the Second British-Afghan War, led to the establishment in 1893 of the Durand Line as an arbitrary boundary between Afghanistan and colonial British India. The Durand line, was drawn by a team of British surveyors, led by Sir Mortimer Durand. This border, which remains in place today, split both Pashtunistan and Baluchistan, traditionally occupied by the Pashtun and Baluch peoples, between Afghan rule and British colonial rule.5

  12.  To a great extent, the line followed the contours of convenient geographical features, as well as the existing limits of British authority, rather than tribal borders. It divided the homelands of the Pashtun tribes nearly equally between Afghanistan and Pakistan, effectively cutting the Pashtun nation in half. This largely imaginary boundary has been viewed since its inception with contempt and resentment by Pashtuns on both sides of the line. As a practical matter the border is unenforceable. In some places the position of the line is disputed; in others it is inaccessible to all but trained mountain climbers. The majority of the Pashtun tribes and clans that control the frontier zones of eastern and southern Afghanistan along the Durand line have never accepted the legitimacy of what they believe to be an arbitrary and capricious boundary.

  13.  The division has led to decades of tension along the border, which accelerated with the partition of British India in 1947. No Afghan government has ever recognised the legitimacy of the border. An Afghanistan unwilling to relinquish its irredentist demands thus becomes a security issue for Pakistan and is used to justify interventionist strategies, among them efforts to neutralise and subvert Pashtun nationalist sentiment. These policies, so consequential for Afghanistan, have also had a deep impact on Pakistan.

  14.  On Pakistan's side of the border, the territory in question is the Northwest Frontier Province, divided into six tribal agencies, those of Khyber, Mohmand, Kurram, North and South Waziristan, and Malakand. Local tribal groups were given control of these agencies when the area was divided during the partition. The area remains largely autonomous, and al-Qa'ida and Taliban remnants are able to operate there with relative freedom.

  15.  Ironically, the unique underlying factors that create this threat are little understood by most policymakers in the West. The continuing instability lies in the fact that the international effort has failed to address longstanding disagreements between Afghanistan and Pakistan—the Durand Line border dispute and the Pushtunistan issue—which in turn impairs the two countries' cooperative capacity in the anti-Taliban campaign.

  16.  Indeed, relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan bear the scars of 60 years of unresolved issues over territory and national identity. Conflicting political alliances and ideologies, especially those once associated with the Cold War, have also helped define the relationship. In recent years, the two countries have been cited for their intersecting roles in the struggle against trans-national terrorism and their necessary joint contribution for bringing about regional stability and economic growth. Far less appreciated or understood are the domestic consequences of their bilateral policies.

  17.  From Pakistan's founding, the country has sought means to counter the demands of virtually every Afghan regime for an independent state for Pakistan's Pashtun ethnic population. The new state was to be carved geographically from Pakistan's northwest and to be known as Pashtunistan.

  18.  Afghanistan's promotion of Pashtunistan has brought retaliation from Pakistan. During the 1950s, Pakistan prevented its alliance partner, the United States, from giving military assistance to the Kabul Government, thus leading the Afghan leadership to turn to the Soviet Union for equipment and training. By periodically impeding the transit of goods from the port of Karachi to landlocked Afghanistan, Pakistan seriously impaired the Afghan economy. The promotion of a Pashtunistan policy resulting in border tensions hastened the departure of Afghanistan's Prime Minister Mohammad Daoud in 1963.6 In 1975, Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto lent covert support to an insurrection in Afghanistan by Pashtun militants. Islamabad also gave refuge to several insurgent leaders, who, in just a few years, would command Pakistan-based mujahideen groups opposing the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and indigenous communists.7

  19.  Pakistan's decision, following the Soviet invasion in 1979, to assist Islamic resistance forces, undertaken with massive support from the United States, Saudi Arabia and others, had far-reaching effects on Pakistan's politics and strategic planning. It gave new life to the military rule of General Zia ul-Haq who, by the late 1970s, faced a serious domestic challenge to his legitimacy following his overthrow and subsequent execution of Bhutto. The jihad against the Soviets and Afghan communists and the international support it received impeded any restoration of democratic rule and sustained the Zia regime until the time of his death in 1988.

  20.  An Afghan resistance sponsored by the regime of Zia and his allies, designed to discourage Soviet offensive ambitions in the region, and wear down the Soviet army also provided Pakistan with an opportunity to blunt Afghan nationalism. Secular and leftist parties, some of which had championed the idea of a Pashtun state, were deliberately excluded from participation in a mujahideen alliance fashioned by Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). By also giving radical Islamist parties effective control over Pakistan's large refugee camps, Islamabad hoped to stifle secular Pashtun nationalism which rallied around the former King, Zahir Shah, who had been living in exile since the communist coup in 1973.

  21.  Forging alliances with Islamist parties and their radical allies created what has subsequently proven to be an enduring military-mullah nexus in Pakistan's politics. Zia's introduction of conservative religious policies in the country gave a strong boost to this religious—military alliance. In return for state support, the religious parties served as open or covert electoral partners, and their affiliated groups were used as a surrogate force against enemies of the military regime domestically, and in India and Afghanistan. Zia's Afghan policy has been responsible for boosting radical political Islam expanded an intelligence apparatus that shored up radical groups to help the government monitor and, when necessary, stifle its political opposition.

  22.  A long-sought and perhaps outmoded goal for Pakistan has been to see Afghanistan as an asset in providing strategic depth in the event of a wide conflict with India. By ensuring a safe haven for its forces, Pakistan would presumably enhance its survivability and deterrent power. Another goal has been to foster friendly if not subservient regimes in Kabul. This has taken form in ways varying from cultivating leaders to supporting insurgencies.

  23.  In pursuing these goals Pakistan's policies are often viewed by Afghans as overbearing and over-reaching. Having sheltered millions of Afghan refugees during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s and civil war of the 1990s, governments in Pakistan took for granted that the Afghans would feel deep gratitude. Pakistan, therefore, repeatedly misjudged their relationship and has engaged in short-sighted policies toward Afghanistan. Perhaps the most serious has been a deliberate effort to exploit Afghanistan's ethnic mosaic for strategic purposes through cross-border clientalism. To ensure the dependence of a Pashtun-dominated Afghan leadership on Pakistan, Islamabad stands accused of promoting adversarial relations between Pashtuns and other ethnic groups.

  24.  The international community has no long-term security problems or challenges with the Baluchis, the Chitralis, the Tajiks, the Nuristanis, or any of the myriad tribal groups along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, except for elements within the Pashtun clans. Therefore the security challenge is not a social problem, or a religious problem, or a generic "tribal" problem. It is a unique cultural problem. Alone among the many peoples and cultures of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, it is the Pashtun people who have proven both susceptible to religious extremist movements and resistant to the imposition of external governance. This is very much the legacy of Zia ul-Haq.

  25.  The stabilisation of Afghanistan, to a very large extent, depends on the nature of that country's relations with Pakistan. There is an urgent need to resolve the longstanding border dispute and the Pashtunistan issue in order to improve the prospects of counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries. An amicable resolution of the Durand Line dispute and the Pashtunistan issue will go a long way to help the campaign against terrorism inasmuch as it would allay Pakistani fears that a strong Afghanistan would revitalise past claims on the Pashtun regions of Pakistan.

  26.  The primary issue of concern today is the Taliban but to understand them it is important to look at how they appeared on the scene and evolved.

THE TALIBAN: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

  27.  Following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, Afghanistan deteriorated into a brutal civil war between rival mujahideen groups, many of which had spent much of their energy fighting each other even during the height of the anti-Soviet jihad. This civil war claimed thousands of lives and decimated the country's infrastructure. The civil war intensified after the mujahideen took control of Kabul in April 1992. Shortly afterwards, violent fighting erupted in the streets of the capital between rival ethnic factions, this conflict spread to neighbouring towns and villages. The ensuing civil war eventually wreaked as much if not more damage and destruction on the country than the Soviet occupation. In Kandahar, fighting between Islamists and traditionalist mujahideen parties resulted in the destruction of much of the traditional power structures. In the rural areas, warlords, drug lords, and bandits ran amok in a state of anarchy created by the unravelling of the traditional tribal leadership system.

28.  During this conflict for power between the mujahideen factions and warlords, Saudi Arabia invested heavily in the region, most notably funding madrasas (religious seminaries) in Pakistan that sought to spread the conservative Wahhabi religious code practiced in the Saudi kingdom.8 Pakistan's Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI) built a network of its own to extend the influence of the indigenous Deobandi School of Islamic thought. These madrasas would come to serve as an important educational alternative for the numerous displaced refugees from the anti-Soviet jihad and Afghan civil war as well as for poor families along the frontier who could not afford the secular schools. Under the oversight of Pakistan's ISI, the Taliban emerged from the madrasas and refugee camps in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA).

  29.  In Afghanistan, the Taliban recruited primarily from madrasas near Ghazni and Kandahar. It arrived on the Afghan scene in 1994 with little warning and vowed to install a traditional Islamic government and end the fighting among the mujahideen. It overthrew the largely Tajik mujahideen government in Kabul, capturing the capital in September 1996. The Taliban considered this regime responsible for a continuing civil war and the deterioration of security in the country, as well as discrimination against Pashtuns. Afghanistan soon became a training ground for fundamentalist activists and other radicals from the Middle East and around Asia.

  30.  War-weary Afghans initially welcomed the Taliban, which promoted itself under the banner of honesty and unity. They were seen mainly by the Pasthuns as the most capable of bringing peace and stability to the country. The Taliban immediately targeted warlords who were deemed responsible for much of the destruction, insecurity, and chaos that plagued Afghanistan since the outbreak of the civil war. Like in Saudi Arabia, it also instituted a religious police force, the Amr Bil Marof Wa Nai An Munkir (Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice) to violently uphold its extreme religious doctrine, which were not previously known in Afghanistan.9

  31.  The people's optimism soon turned to fear as the Taliban introduced a stringent interpretation of sharia law, banned women from work, and introduced punishments such as death by stoning and amputations.

  32.  While Tajik resistance to the Taliban in the form of the Northern Alliance held out throughout the Taliban period and retained Afghanistan's seat in the United Nations, the Taliban eventually conquered 80 percent of the country. By September 2001, it was poised to finish off the Northern Alliance. However, the September 11 attacks led to U.S. intervention on 7 October 2001, aimed at destroying al-Qa'ida as well as removing the Taliban from Afghanistan.

  33.  The Taliban primarily comprises of Pashtuns from the Ghilzai group with some support from the Kakar tribe of the Ghurghusht group. Taliban spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, and most of the surviving senior leadership of the Taliban are from the Hotaki tribe of the Ghilzai. The Taliban represents an ultraconservative Islamic front with an ideology derived from the Deobandi School. The movement, however, took Deobandism to extremes the school's founders would not have recognized.

  34.  While the Taliban's rise challenged many traditional tribal institutions, the eventual leadership consisted almost exclusively of Ghilzai Pashtuns. The Ghilzai have historically been at odds with the smaller Durrani group of tribes, which is represented to some extent in the current Karzai Afghan government. Ghilzai Pashtuns are concentrated in the southeast in Oruzgan, Zabul, Dai Kundi and Gardez provinces and in the Katawaz region of Paktika province and extending eastwards towards the Suleiman Mountains into Pakistan. They also have communities in the centre and north of Afghanistan as a result of resettlement, both forcible and encouraged, under Durrani Empire in the early 19th century.10

  35.  Tribalism in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan can be seen as a separation of ethno-linguistic groups, giving primacy to ties of kinship and patrilineal ancestry. The tribe is a kind of amalgamation of mutual assistance and support, with members cooperating on defence and maintaining order.11

  36.  At the strategic level, the Taliban is currently fighting a classic "war of the flea", largely along the same lines used by the mujahideen against the Soviets, including fighting in villages to deliberately provoke air strikes and inflict collateral damage.12 The death of a Taliban fighter invokes an obligation of revenge among all his male relatives, making the killing an act of insurgent multiplication, not elimination. The Soviets learned this lesson painfully as they killed nearly a million Pashtuns during their occupation of Afghanistan but inadvertently increased the number of Pashtun mujahideen by the end of the war.

  37.  The Taliban centre of gravity is the Pashtun heartland along the Afghan-Pakistan border and not just indoctrinated impressionable teenage boys, mid-level commanders or even Mullah Omar and no amount of killing them will terminate the insurgency. For every individual that is captured or killed, there are at least another five coming along the assembly line. It is this infrastructure which replenishes the ranks of the Taliban that needs to be addressed and systematically dismantled.

TRIBAL POLITICS

  38.  The Pakistani state has seen a growing diverse array of threats in recent years to its legitimacy and authority. These challenges have included a substantial surge in religious militancy, mounting provincial and tribal unrest and the weakening of the institutional capacity of the state to govern effectively. All three factors are present in its western border areas with Afghanistan and can be traced in large part to its Afghan policies. By encouraging and supporting extremists, like the Taliban, as a tool to retain and hold influence in Afghanistan, Pakistan introduced changes that undermined its own ability to maintain its writ within its own borders. Policies on Afghanistan that altered traditional power structures in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have resulted in wider domestic instability. Not inconsequentially, the reputation of Pakistan's military has suffered.

39.  Pakistan had gambled for strategic depth in Afghanistan, but had conceded reverse strategic depth to the Taliban in Pakistan. Even then, as long as such elements looked away from Pakistan and engaged themselves in Afghanistan, the authorities thought they were safe in Pakistan. However, that was not to be. The tribal political system was to undergo a complete overhaul when in the post-9/11 context Pakistan was forced to reverse its Afghan policy. It was then that the pro-Taliban Pakistani radicals came home to roost. Soon afterwards some of these elements asserted themselves in North and South Waziristan, Bajaur, Mohmand, Dir and Swat, and Khyber in the tribal areas and emerged as the Pakistani Taliban.

  40.  No politician in Islamabad appears to be ready to take upon himself the stigma of fighting the militants within Pakistan on behalf of the international community. The Pakistani state has to stop approaching the issue of tribal insurgency through the narrow prism of assuming that maintaining law and order will alone resolve the problem. It has to be acknowledged that the old system of controlling the area through obliging tribal maliks (leader of a village or tribe) patronized by the state is falling apart. The state is now up against a rigid, inflexible, fearless, and defiant group of militants who are winning the battles against the state and filling the power vacuum in the area.

  41.  Rather than addressing these tribal leaders separately as sheikhs of small independent emirates, Islamabad must work out a comprehensive offer to all of them and compel them to join the political mainstream. The policy, since Pakistan's independence, of buffering the tribal areas and keeping them out of the spotlight of representative politics has created a space for regressive forces which are now threatening to take even the stable areas under their control.

  42.  Politicians and especially military rulers for more than a quarter-century have gradually placed religion in a more central role in Pakistani politics on all levels. As a part of the support for the mujahideen, Zia ul-Haq gave the ulema a more powerful position in the Pakistani state. In the tribal areas, the support for the 1980s' Afghan jihad and the backing for the Taliban regime in the 1990s resulted in the usurpation by Islamist militants of the traditional secular tribal leadership.13 The old and largely non-religious system of governance, which was in place in the FATA, was "Islamisized". Previously, the malik was the local political authority. He was elected by a jirga (tribal assembly of elders) in the village, and through an Islamabad-appointed political agent received government funds and handled relations with the state. The local mullah (Muslim religious cleric) was clearly subordinate, and in most cases completely apolitical.

  43.  From Zia's rule onward, the state began to fund the mullahs directly, giving them financial control and independence. Over the years the mullahs took on an enhanced political role in the community and gradually became more powerful and influential than the malik. With new resources and status, the local religious figures were able to emerge as key political brokers and, very often, promoters of religious militancy.14 Empowering the mullahs made these border areas more hospitable to radicalised local tribesmen. With the malik significantly undermined it became harder, if not impossible, for disillusioned locals to protest the presence of the Afghan fighters and foreign terrorists occupying their land.

  44.  The gradual change in the power structure from the malik to the mullah united the people under the banner of Islam, giving less prominence to national and ethnic allegiances. This susceptibility of the people of the region to religious insurgencies, and their resistance to external governmental control, have been ascribed by some observers to tribal culture, or simply a response to chronic poverty and underdevelopment. Yet all of the ethnic groups of the border region have in common the same key elements of tribal organization.15

  45.  The Taliban are proving to be increasingly irrepressible. They seem to be adapting and evolving faster than expected to the challenges confronting them. Although in terms of weaponry they cannot match the vastly superior Western forces, in terms of propaganda, psyops and operational reach they are proving to be a force to reckon with. In hindsight one can say that the Taliban made good use of the time made available to them by the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq in 2003. The Taliban seized the opportunity to implement important structural and operational transformations, which made them a much more formidable and effective force. While the Taliban still retain some of their fundamental characteristics, they have tactfully improvised on many other areas, especially their military tactics and approach towards media and propaganda.

  46.  The ambiguity over the ongoing efforts for national reconciliation in Afghanistan seems to be growing. A sense of confusion prevails due to differing ways and means of a whole range of diverse entities now involved in reconciling the anti-government groups, especially the Taliban. Talking to the Taliban is being increasingly considered as a realistic option as a way of containing the proliferating insurgency. Often "deals" and "pacts" with local Taliban commanders are projected as the only effective means of ensuring a semblance of peace and development. The idea of gradually co-opting the Taliban in the ongoing political process is being mooted as a possible solution for the Western forces. However, some naive policy makers in the West, in their attempts to make peace overtures to the Taliban, do not seem to factor in the long-term impact, nor its immediate consequences for the Afghan polity.

  47.  The fighting with the Pashtun clans in the FATA during most of 2004-07 was very costly in terms of military casualties and pride for the Pakistani army. Anxious to salvage something from its failed policy, the Pervez Musharraf regime concluded a truce, the North Waziristan accord on 5 September 2006. According to the terms of the deal, the tribesmen agreed to cease attacking the army and to stop crossing the border to fight in Afghanistan. The government agreed to halt major ground and air operations, free prisoners, retreat to barracks, compensate for losses and allow tribesmen to carry small arms. The thorny issue of foreign fighters was left ambiguous. The militants promised that all non-Pakistanis would leave North Waziristan, or stay and respect the deal. But the government did not insist that they be registered.16

  48.  British NATO commanders were quick to strike a similar pact the following month in the Taliban-infested Musa Qala district in the southern province of Helmand. The strategy suffered a fatal blow when the pact was soon violated by the Taliban who overran the town, disarming the local police, burning government buildings and threatening officials and residents.17

  49.  In spite of the Musharraf regime's efforts to sell the accord as a step towards stability and peace, it was a deal very much on the militants' terms. They were handsomely "compensated" for their losses and allowed to retain their weapons stocks. Since the Musharraf deal, U.S. troops on Afghanistan's eastern border have seen a threefold increase in attacks. The tribal deal has also contributed to the Taliban's overall resurgence as ethnic Pashtun rebels are no longer fighting Pakistani troops and are using the North Waziristan border area as a command-and-control hub for launching attacks in Afghanistan. Peace continues to elude both North Waziristan and Helmand.18

  50.  The Taliban and al-Qa'ida militants are using the lands of the Pashtun as a launching pad for attacks to destabilize Afghanistan, as well as a training ground for terrorist attacks worldwide. In addition to the Taliban, the Afghan-Pakistan border area has proven particularly vital to other insurgent forces led by Afghan Islamist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-i-Islami (HIG) Party, the Haqqani Faction of Maulawi Jalaluddin Haqqani, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan led by Baitullah Mahsud.19 The Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law or TNSM) led by Maulana Fazlullah, also known as Mullah Radio for the illegal radio channel he operates. These insurgent forces represent an existential threat to the Karzai regime, a growing threat to the Pakistani government, and an enormous challenge to regional stability.20

  51.  Since 2002 the FATA has also provided a sanctuary for a growing insurgent network that has struck Afghanistan with a vengeance. It provides an almost impregnable base for command and control, fundraising, recruiting, training, and launching and recovery of military operations and terrorist attacks. Growing outward from the FATA, extremism has spread across the Pashtun belt, and Pashtun tribal areas in both Pakistan and Afghanistan are increasingly falling under the de facto political control of the extremists. The Taliban and its associated groups have used murder, arson, intimidation, bombings, and a sophisticated information campaign to subvert traditional tribal governance structures.

  52.  Justice, education and social policies in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, are decided by the Pakistani Taliban, who are ideologically similar to the Afghan Taliban and also comprise of local Pashtuns. Their reach has in fact been felt across the NWFP, notably in the northern districts of Swat and Malakand. Swat was once a popular tourist destination with the Malamjabba ski resort being the only one in the whole of Pakistan. The entire Swat valley has now been devastated by the spread of radicalism. Fazlullah's TNSM has established a "parallel government" through Islamic courts to enforce Sharia law which have issued edicts banning girls from attending schools.21 This has drawn an eerie parallel to the policies of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The extent of the militant Islamist influence became apparent with the assassination of the former Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto on 27 December 2007.

  53.  Quetta, located in western Pakistan, is the capital of Baluchistan, the largest and poorest of Pakistan's provinces. Unlike the rest of the province, Quetta has a Pashtun majority and is also considered the sanctuary of the Taliban leadership. Afghan President Hamid Karzai claims Taliban leader Mullah Omar is living there. Quetta is also home to the Command and Staff College, one of the premier schools of the Pakistani military and the headquarters of the Frontier Corps of Baluchistan.22

  54.  What may seem like a paradox, the co-existence of extremists and radicals with the Pakistani military in the same place, is emblematic of the challenge that exists in Pakistan which then rebounds and impacts on Afghanistan. This is perhaps best explained by the Shaldara madrasa in the Pashtunabad district of Quetta which has been accused of acting as an incubator for recruiting and radicalising young easily susceptible men who end up joining the ranks of the Taliban as suicide bombers in Afghanistan.

  55.  There is an urgent need to stop the recruitment and radicalisation process by reforming the madrasas that are most susceptible to the Taliban rhetoric and doctrine. Madrasas have a long history in Pakistan and they serve socially important purposes. Therefore it is reasonable for a government to seek to modernise and adapt rather than totally abolish them.

  56.  International assistance should focus heavily on rebuilding an education system that has been allowed to decay for three decades and should be closely tied to proof that it represents a genuine commitment to promote moderate, modern education and on the condition the government identifies and closes madrasas affiliated with banned extremist groups like the Taliban. It is also essential for all madrasas to disclose their sources of income and declare dissociation from any militant activity or group. Funding for reform projects should be suspended if the government fails to do so. International financial institutions providing, or intending to provide, financial assistance for madrasas reform should also make their grants conditional on the above criteria.

THE BRITISH CONNECTION

  57.  The Pakistan-Afghanistan border region constitutes a significant threat to Western national security interests. On 14 December, 2008, British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, revealed that three-quarters of the most serious terrorist plots being investigated by U.K. authorities have links to Pakistan.23 Indeed, terrorist related events over the last few years in the UK have seen increasing international interest in the connections between radicals in the UK and their counterparts in the Pakistani tribal areas that border Afghanistan. Attention has focused on how such groups and individuals could link up and cooperate to carry out attacks in the UK.

58.  On 30 April 2007, the longest ever al-Qa'ida linked terrorism trial in the UK, known as the Ammonium Nitrate/Crevice Plot, concluded with guilty verdicts for five of the seven defendants. The convicted men had purchased and stored half a ton (600 kg) of ammonium nitrate fertiliser for the purposes of constructing bombs to launch attacks on diverse targets such as shopping centres, nightclubs, electricity companies, football stadiums, the utilities network, and the British Parliament.24

  59.  The defendants, all of Pakistani origin except one who was of Algerian extraction, were young British men, born or brought up in the UK but had established links to al-Qa'ida in the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border where some went for terrorist training. The plot became the first major one aimed at the UK, post-September 11.

  60.  Omar Khyam, the ring leader of the Ammonium Nitrate cell, portrayed an all too common yet disturbing trend of individual, born and brought up in the UK, but becoming radicalised, travelling abroad and willing to turn against their own society. During his court trial Khyam illustrated his ideological journey from secular British schoolboy to global terrorist.25

  61.  In 2001, Khyam attended a training camp in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) near Afghanistan before crossing the border to meet Taliban members. In 2003, he travelled to Malakand, in Pakistan's NWFP, together with some of his cell. They had established contact with a warlord in Malakand, NWFP. It was there that some of the Crevice cell trained and honed their skills in putting together an explosive device. Khyam and his co-conspirator Salahuddin Amin also received training in explosives in Kohat, NWFP.26

  62.  On 8 August 2008, one of the biggest ever terrorist trials in the UK, known as the Liquid Bomb/Operation Overt Plot, concluded where three men were convicted of conspiring to commit mass murder but the jury failed to reach a verdict on the allegation they were plotting to bring down trans-Atlantic flights by using liquid explosives.27

  63.  By majority verdicts, the jury convicted the three men of conspiracy to commit murder. They were the cell's ringleader, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, the bomb-maker Assad Sarwar, and Tanvir Hussain. They had also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to cause explosions and conspiracy to commit public nuisance. The three admitted plotting to detonate a small device at Heathrow's Terminal 3 because it was used by several US airlines. They had earlier aborted plans to explode a home-made bomb at the Houses of Parliament due to the tight security at Westminster.28

  64.  Ali travelled frequently to Pakistan, staying for long periods between 2003 to 2006. It is believed his travels led to South Waziristan. His co-conspirators, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain also travelled to Pakistan. Ali claimed many of his trips were as a volunteer for an Islamic medical charity. However, in reality he was attending training camps and meeting senior figures in terrorist groups.29

  65.  It is pertinent to look at the places where these British individuals have been recruited and trained. Kohat, Malakand and South Waziristan are the same places that the Taliban and their affiliates are operating. There is a clear nexus that exists which in addition to being a base of operations for the Taliban is also a recruiting ground for Britons. This has obvious security concerns and challenges.

  66.  Though the tribal areas represent a significant security concern, other major terrorist plots in Britain have emanated from areas of Pakistan that extend beyond the Afghan-Pakistan border like the 7 July 2005 suicide attacks and the follow up failed plot (21/7) two weeks later.

  67.  Pakistan has fallen victim not to terrorism directed against it by external forces, but rather to the corrosive effects of extremist groups, many with a trans-national ideological orientation, that have flourished within its own borders. Therefore, the remedy for the security dilemma must and can only lie primarily within Pakistan itself.

  68.  The terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan that benefits the Taliban will at the same time continue to act as a recruiting ground for young Britons that are being drawn and attracted by the ideology and doctrines that al-Qa'ida and it's affiliates articulate.

CONCLUSION

  69.  Afghanistan's woes began with outside interference and though the Taliban was dislodged from power in 2001, they were never defeated or dismantled but in fact have proliferated, and this is being fuelled by those who wish to see pro-Taliban and al-Qa'ida elements re-asserting themselves. The key point to understand is that the Taliban is no longer a political movement or even a militia. They have now become a terrorist group adopting the tactics and strategies of the insurgency in Iraq, killing with stealth and unflinching in their agenda. The ill-conceived perception that there is a "moderate Taliban" is completely misguided. Perhaps the only difference between the "moderate Taliban" and "fundamentalist Taliban" is that the "moderate Taliban" may use smaller weapons and bombs and their militant tactics may not be so well thought out.

70.  The key questions here are whether, or to what extent, the Taliban are interested in negotiating with Kabul and the West? To what extent are Kabul and the West in a position to lay down terms and conditions for negotiations? If the Taliban are a decentralized entity, then which Taliban faction or affiliate should Kabul be talking to? On what terms and conditions would the Taliban be willing to share power with the Karzai government? What would be its impact on the country's constitution, state structures, and foreign policy? Is Kabul willing to integrate Taliban guerrillas into the armed forces? How would it impact on the position of minority ethnic groups? These are some of the issues of far-reaching consequence which are not being thought of, especially as Kabul, in the given circumstances, cannot speak from a position of strength.

  71.  Any compromise with the Taliban in its current form would not be feasible and will completely undermine the building and strengthening of civil institutions in Afghanistan which will result in rival power centres being created. It is, therefore, pertinent that the West further strengthens the position of Kabul, and keeps the military pressure on anti-government groups. It is also imperative to the struggle against the Taliban, al-Qa'ida and their affiliates that the West and its regional partners stay together and help Afghanistan build strong state institutions. Any stopgap measure or short-term approach to contain the Taliban insurgency would act adversely on people's perception about the seven-year-old political process. A weak Kabul and a divided Western coalition certainly do not offer a perfect recipe for engineering divisions within the Taliban or for winning the cooperation of the Afghan people. It will perpetuate Taliban militancy and, worse, growing Talibanization on the Pakistan-Afghan frontier and beyond.

  72.  The symptoms are evident in Afghanistan but the disease is located in Pakistan. Indeed, the root lies in the inability of the Pakistani state to decipher the problem correctly. The situation can no longer be easily reversed and the Pakistani state has to move beyond the colonial policy of segregating the tribal areas and leaving the people to the mercy of the redundant tribal maliks, Islamists or the warlords. Islamabad tends to fight the symptom while the disease is left undiagnosed and untreated. Pakistan has to now ready itself for a long-term effort to integrate these areas and mainstream its population through political consensus. Parts of Pakistan too are in the process of Talibanisation which is gathering momentum and the influence of radicals is fast spreading beyond the tribal areas, where groups calling themselves Pakistani Taliban are operating.

  73.  Pakistan's Afghan policies over the past 30 years, whether pursued for domestic, political, or strategic reasons have come at the expense of the country's own political stability and social cohesion. These policies carry heavy responsibility for intensifying Pakistan's ethnic fissures, weakening it economically, fuelling religious radicalism, and bringing about an attenuation of the state's legitimate authority. They have affected the balance of political power within Pakistan, most of all by reinforcing military ascendance. While Pakistan's policies toward Afghanistan have attracted foreign resources, this assistance has regularly been a source of domestic controversy and dissent.

  74.  In formulating its Afghan policies, Pakistan's leaders seem often to ignore the long-term and wider implications of their decisions both at home and abroad. Preoccupied with tactical policy goals such as achieving foreign military aid and gaining strategic depth, Islamabad has nevertheless turned a blind eye to domestic radicalisation and the impact this is having on its ability to govern within its own borders. It has acted too often out of convenience rather than conviction in choosing its allies, with the government's credibility among its own people a frequent casualty. Pakistan has also failed to recognise the inherent contradictions of its two-track policy, between reserving a Pashtun card in the event of a failing Afghanistan and normalising its economic and political relations for the benefit of both countries.

  75.  In Pakistan, the permissive conditions enabling the Taliban must be confronted, not with rhetoric and empty promises, but with action and not vacillating, half-hearted measures, but strong and consistent Pakistani military action wherever required and at whatever cost. Because Pashtuns never negotiate from a position of strength, any negotiations and "peace deals" are simply seen as a sign of weakness by the radicals. The United Kingdom, European Union and United States need to press the Pakistan government to take action against pro-Taliban elements in Quetta, FATA and NWFP and publish monthly NATO figures of cross-border incursions into Afghanistan to encourage Islamabad to do more on its side of the border. It is notable that President Barack Obama's administration has said that Pakistan will be held "accountable for security in the border region with Afghanistan".30

  76.  Western support for the previous Musharraf regime has been a total failure, whose legacy is being painfully felt with the substantial increase of violence in South Asia over the last few years. Western governments undermine their own interests by invoking the "Islamist threat" to justify support of military regimes. This approach has contributed to the perception in the Muslim world in general, and in Pakistan in particular, that democracy is something to be applied selectively. Supporting and empowering the democratic infrastructure and civil institutions in Pakistan should be a priority. Contrary to popular perceptions, a civilian government is better placed than a military regime to tackle the rise in extremism in their own country which is also seeping into its eastern and western neighbours.

  77.  In equal measure, without a major change in counter-insurgency strategy and a major increase in manpower, equipment and especially reconstruction funding to Kabul, the West may fail to achieve their objectives in Afghanistan.

  78.  Despite extreme poverty, a landmine-littered landscape, endemic corruption, a weak central government, a virulent insurgency, a damaged economy, booming opium production, and a host of other daunting concerns, Afghanistan nevertheless remains geo-strategically vital. The West cannot repeat its post-Soviet abandonment of the country, or naively assume that some stillborn peace deal can be achieved with the Taliban, because the results of that will continue to have negative consequences for the region. By abandoning Afghanistan once, the West allowed the country to become a refuge for terrorist groups to recruit, train, and wage war globally. The effect on Afghanistan, the region, and the rest of the world was dramatic and terrifying. This time, if the West leave, or lose, the results will be even worse.

22 January 2009

ENDNOTES1  "Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007", United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, p iv,

http://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/AFG07_ExSum_web.pdf [accessed 20 January, 2009]

2  Larry P Goodson, Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), p 97.

3  Barnett R Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), p 5.

4  John C Griffiths, Afghanistan: Key to a Continent (Boulder: Westview Press, 1981), p 78.

5  Sir Percy Sykes, The Right Honourable Sir Mortimer Durand—A Biography, (London: Cassell & Co. Ltd, 1926)/

6  Amin Saikal, Ravan Farhadi and Kirill Nourzhanov, Modern Afghanistan, (London: I B Tauris, 2006), pp 117-130.

7  Marvin G Weinbaum & Jonathan B Harder, "Pakistan's Afghan policies and their consequences", Contemporary South Asia, Volume 16, Issue 1 March 2008, pp 25—38.

8  Rizwan Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan, (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2005), pp 139-140.

9  Jeanne K Giraldo & Harold A Trinkunas, Terrorism Financing and State Responses, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), p 95.

10   Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp 18-19; Michael Griffen, Reaping the World Wind: Afghanistan, al-Qa'ida and the Holy War, (London: Pluto Press, 2003), p 70.

11  Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980).

12  Robert Taber, War of the Flea: The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare (Washington, D.C.: Potomac, 2002).

13  Husain Haqqani, "Pakistan—Between Mosque and Military" (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, 2005), pp 145-146.

14  C Christine Fair, Nicholas Howenstein, and J Alexander, "Their, Troubles on the Pakistan—Afghanistan Border" (Washington DC: US Institute for Peace, December 2006), p 5.

15  Sayed Wiqar Ali Shah, Ethnicity, Islam, and Nationalism: Muslim Politics in the North-West Frontier Province, 1937-47, (Oxford: Oxford University, 1999).

16  "Peace Pact North Waziristan", Frontline, PBS,

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/etc/nwdeal.html [accessed 20 January, 2009].

17  Declan Walsh, "Taliban overrun town as peace deal fails", The Guardian, 3 February, 2007.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/03/afghanistan.declanwalsh [accessed 20 January, 2009].

18  "Pakistan's Tribal Areas: Appeasing the Militants", International Crisis Group, 11 December 2006,

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4568 [accessed 20 January, 2009];

Tarique Niazi, "Pakistan's Peace Deal with Taliban Militants", Jamestown Foundation,

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=924

[accessed 20 January, 2009]

19  Thomas H Johnson & M Chris Mason, "No Sign until the Burst of Fire", International Security, International Security, Vol 32, No 4 (Spring 2008), pp 41-77.

20  Owen Bennett-Jones, "US Policy Options Toward Pakistan: A Principled and Realistic Approach", The Stanley Foundation, February 2008, http://stanleyfdn.org/publications/pab/JonesPAB208.pdf [accessed 20 January, 2009].

21  "Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl", BBC News Online, 19 January, 2009,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7834402.stm [accessed 20 January, 2009];
Nasir Khan "Taliban bans education for girls in Swat Valley", The Washington Times, 5 January, 2009,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/05/taliban-bans-education-for-girls-in-pakistans-swat/ [accessed 20 January, 2009].

22  Susanne Koelbl, "Headquarters of the Taliban", Spiegel Online, 24 November, 2006,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,450605,00.html [accessed 20 January, 2009].

23  "Pact targets Pakistan terror link", BBC News Online, 14 December, 2008,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7782125.stm [accessed 20 January, 2009].

24  "UK fertiliser bomb plot", BBC News Online,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/guides/457000/457032/html/nn3page1.stm [accessed 20 January, 2009].

25  "Profile: Omar Khyam", BBC News Online, 30 April, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6149794.stm [accessed 20 January, 2009].

26  "UK fertiliser bomb plot", BBC News Online,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/guides/457000/457032/html/nn2page1.stm [accessed 20 January, 2009].

27  Dominic Casciani, "Airline urges liquids review after trial", BBC News Online, 9 September 2008,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7564184.stm [accessed 20 January, 2009].

28  Ibid.

29  "Airline urges liquids review after trial", BBC News Online, 8 September, 2008,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7604808.stm [accessed 20 January, 2009].

30  The White House, The Agenda—Foreign Policy, http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/foreign_policy/ [accessed 21 January, 2009].





 
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