HC 514 The UK's Foreign Policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan

Written evidence from Dr Sajjan M. Gohel, Asia-Pacific Foundation

Afghanistan – Pakistan (AfPak): Britain’s Challenges, Dilemmas and Strategic Imperatives

Dr Sajjan Gohel is currently, International Security Director for the Asia-Pacific Foundation (APF) which is an independent security and intelligence think-tank based in London. The APF provides analysis on a variety of security and terrorist related issues and is regularly consulted by various government and military departments and media organisations both domestic and foreign.

Sajjan is head of the APF Analysis team that produces reports on terrorist and security related issues throughout the world. In addition, he has written Op-Ed pieces for the national print media as well as serving as a guest commentator for television news network including BBC, ITN, Sky News, CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CTV and CBC. Sajjan is also a regular speaker at international conferences on terrorism and security issues.

Sajjan is one of the leading authorities in investigating the ideologies, world-views, agendas, and strategies of trans-national terrorist and insurgent groups throughout the world. His primary focus is on the regional and wider situations in South-East Asia, South Asia and Central Asia, the Middle East, Horn of Africa, North Africa and Western Europe.

Sajjan has been part of the APF team that contributed written testimony and oral evidence for the United Kingdom Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons on topics including ‘Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism’, ‘Terrorism in South Asia’ and ‘Global Security: Afghanistan’.

In March 2005, Sajjan was asked by the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) to produce an assessment on Lebanon and the security concerns after the killing of prominent Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri.

In 2005, Sajjan formed part of a European Union high-level working group to discuss the terror threat in the region and to produce a working paper for then European Union counter-terrorism chief, Gijs De Vries.

Sajjan serves as a visiting lecturer to the NATO School in Oberammergau, and the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. He is also part of the ‘Partnership for Peace Consortium: Combating Terrorism Working Group’ organised by the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and NATO.

Sajjan, received his BA (Hons) in Politics from Queen Mary, University of London. Sajjan has also obtained a Master's (MSc) in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a PhD at the LSE entitled, ‘The Evolution of Egyptian Radical Ideological Thought from Hasan al-Banna to Ayman al-Zawahiri’.

Summary

A premature withdrawal from Afghanistan will enable the Taliban to reassert its authority throughout the country whilst instigating, fear, repression and discrimination, Afghanistan will again revert to becoming a cesspool for terrorist groups like al-Qaeda.

The onslaught of Talibanisation in Pakistan has spread from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to the urban heartland of Pakistan Punjab thus creating serious security concerns.

British foreign policy will not be able to absorb the consequences of the growth and expansion of Taliban activity throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan as it will have a direct bearing on Britain’s security.

If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda and its affiliates would be able to plot major trans-national terrorist attacks.

The poppy trade has played a critical destabilising role in corrupting elements within the Afghan police, provincial governments and bankrolling the resurgence of the Taliban. There is a direct connection to the manufacture and processing of opium that helps to fund and fuel the Taliban insurgency.

There is a need to look at the opium trade beyond just a law enforcement issue by considering its broader implications for trade, security, and development. A main contributor to the volatile narcotics-insurgency cycle continued to be the scarcity of economic opportunities despite significant foreign aid.

A majority of the aid money sent from Britain to Afghanistan was channelled through international agencies and organisations, not the Government, resulting in a large portion of the aid being spent on administrative costs such as consultant fees. Britain is the second largest aid donor yet most Afghans are not aware of this, which undermines efforts to win hearts and minds.

Security Sector Reform is identified as the cornerstone upon which the success of the entire state-building process depends. However, transformation rather than reform is the more appropriate way to describe the process in Afghanistan.

Land grabbing and water disputes have been a major source of contention among tribes and individuals within Helmand, often leading to disputes and subsequent violence within and across communities. There is an urgent need to address the causes for which the majority of Pashtuns are disgruntled and disillusioned.

There is no effective counter-narrative to dispel the myths and half-truths aimed at undermining the British presence. If there is no policy for a strategic communication approach then Afghans will only be hearing one perspective and that is from the Taliban.

British film makers have been at the forefront in illustrating social issues that suggest that there have been some real success stories in Afghanistan’s transition from Taliban rule. In particular there have been grass-roots movements involving sports and entertainment which have broad mass-appeal and can also serve as a way of uniting the country.

The UK needs to continue to robustly support the rights of women in Afghanistan. The Afghan Government's attempts to seek reconciliation with the Taliban will harm women's rights. Women living in areas where the Taliban have regained strength have suffered intimidation, violence and even death.

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 of the Durand Line and the Pashtunistan issue in order to improve the prospects of counter-terrorism co-operation between the two countries.

The Taliban is not a homogenous group. It has many factions and is a mixture of characters including ideological, warlords, land owners, criminals, drug dealers and people out of work.

The most significant Taliban faction is Mullah Omar’s Quetta Shura based in or near the city of Quetta in north-western Pakistan. The network of warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin lead a deadly parallel faction to the Quetta Shura. The Hizb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, although independent of the Taliban, is also another group that poises significant threats.

Deep-rooted ties exist between Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line, blurring the distinction between Afghan and Pakistani Taliban factions especially with the Mehsud clan which continues to carry out attacks throughout Pakistan. Equally they have launched a strategy to recruit Pashtuns based in the west for carrying out future attacks in North America and Europe.

Pakistan had gambled for strategic depth in Afghanistan, but has instead conceded reverse strategic depth to the Taliban in Pakistan. The insurgency is particularly dangerous because it has sparked an identity crisis throughout the Pashtun belt in Pakistan.

No politician in Islamabad appears to be ready to take upon himself the task 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.

Pakistan's fragile democracy has been severely damaged by the Government's poor response to the worst floods in the country's modern history. Extremist groups have filled the void and have been far more successful in distributing aid than any governmental body or aid agency. The unfolding political story of Pakistan including its role in battling terrorism and the unfolding humanitarian disaster are inextricably linked.

Directly because of dissatisfaction with Pakistan’s efforts in the tribal areas of Pakistan, the U.S. began carrying out drone strikes to eliminate members of al-Qaeda as part of an evolving strategy to implement pre-emptive strikes to deter or dismantle any potential terrorist plots that al-Qaeda and its affiliates are planning.

If continued drone strikes in Pakistan aimed at terrorists could inadvertently kill members of the armed forces. This could trigger the Pakistani military to close the Khyber Pass for NATO convoys in the future which in turn could put Washington in direct confrontation with Islamabad.

The Pakistan-Afghanistan border region constitutes a significant threat to Western national security interests. Terrorist related events in the UK have seen increasing connections between radicals in Britain and their counterparts in the Pakistani tribal areas that border Afghanistan.

Intelligence co-operation between the UK and Pakistan is essential. However, that ‘co-operation’ has at times been extremely problematic. It needs to be more transparent and effective.

British foreign policy needs to factor in various potential scenarios related to Pakistan. How will the UK react and respond if another terrorist attack on British soil is traced back to Pakistan; what will Britain’s position be should and when the security situation in Pakistan deteriorates to an alarming level; what can Britain do to help bolster civilian rule in Pakistan and blunt any interference by the military.

Many British servicemen have died in Afghanistan since operations began in October 2001. Many more have suffered terrible life-changing injuries. The majority of deaths have been from the Taliban that launch their attacks whilst crossing over from save-havens in Pakistan and then slip back in afterwards.

The fear that the situation in Afghanistan is unwinnable or that the Afghan Taliban is invincible are myths but myths that are often repeated which are damaging for public perceptions and morale. The irony behind the view that ‘Afghanistan is the graveyard of Empires’, is that for most of its history Afghanistan has actually been the cradle of empires.

The rising tide of violence and daily misery has made the Taliban deeply unpopular in the south and south-west, and nationwide polls indicate that they and other extremist groups have little support.

It is impossible and a fallacy to have a genuine dialogue with the Taliban on issues that involve the respect of the rights of women, and ethnic and religious minorities, to halt and dismantle the infrastructure that enables opium poppy cultivation and prevent al-Qaeda and affiliates from re-establishing their safe havens inside Afghanistan.

The Taliban cannot be compared with the IRA, ETA or even the Tamil Tigers. All these terrorist groups have had or continue to have a political wing which would take part in the democratic process by standing in elections. They also were willing to compromise at some level for greater political representation and power sharing.

The Taliban believe that they are in the ascendency. They feel they have the strategic advantage, durability and resources to outlast the west in Afghanistan. British foreign policy will need to assess what are the chances of being able to divide and fracture the various Taliban factions.

Introduction

1. The year 2010 saw a continued rise in violent incidents in Afghanistan, including in areas around the capital city of Kabul, which had previously been considered to be relatively safe. Deteriorating security conditions made it likely that the attempt to build a lasting and viable democratic state in Afghanistan is becoming increasingly precarious. Afghans appeared stuck in a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle in which attaining security was increasingly viewed as being a precondition to democratic state building, while the lack of investment in institution building contributed to a deterioration of the security environment. Lack of security was indeed an overriding concern for both Afghans and the international community.

2. As of 11 October 2010, the number of British fatalities in Afghanistan stands at 340. That is more than the combined total of fatalities of all European nations that have troops in Afghanistan. Helmand province, which is where British troops have been most active, has the highest fatality rate of all the Afghan provinces which is currently at 602. [1] With the mounting casualties for NATO forces in Afghanistan, large scale Taliban attacks throughout the country, accusations of endemic corruption throughout the Afghan Government, police and armed forces, there is increasing concern and mounting pressure that the west needs to either reduce its commitments in Afghanistan or more dramatically withdraw entirely.

3. Despite the problems that exist and under very challenging circumstances, abandoning Afghanistan will create consequences that are unimaginable. Not only will the Taliban reassert its authority throughout the country through, fear, repression and discrimination, Afghanistan will again revert to becoming a cesspool for terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. In addition, through the cultivation of poppies for the mass-production of opium, Afghanistan will become a narco-state fully controlled and sanctioned by the Taliban which will provide resources to a terrorist infrastructure to use in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan to plot and plan attacks across the globe. A narco-nation being a state sponsor of trans-national terrorism would make the situation far worse than it was before the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks. In Pakistan, the permissive conditions enabling the Afghan Taliban continue unhindered. The rhetoric by the Pakistani military has not been translated into any substantive action with only half-hearted measures against the various Taliban factions headquartered in the country.

4. With the collapse of the few remaining institutional structures in Pakistan’s North and South Waziristan, the districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are rapidly succumbing to the ruthless onslaught of Talibanisation. This problem has now spread to the urban heartland of Pakistan Punjab where it is now firmly entrenched. Afghanistan’s future is intrinsically tied to Pakistan’s stability. If these centrifugal forces continue to proliferate then both countries will continue to suffer from an insurrection that is robust, lethal, and resilient. Unless the networks and infrastructure that allow the Taliban to replenish its ranks are dismantled, a new generation of leaders will emerge continuing to threaten the security of Afghanistan, Pakistan and potentially creating global repercussions.

5. Hope for a positive future in Afghanistan and Pakistan is not lost. That said, any progress made since the ousting of the Taliban militia from Afghanistan nine years ago is under serious threat. When examining the current crisis in both countries, observers must understand that the situation is tremendously complex; an all-encompassing solution will not easily be found. Some international policy makers continue to make the same mistake of approaching conflicts in a conventional, narrow-minded and incoherent manner. They carry with them a number of attitudes, perceptions and expectations that don’t reflect ground realities.

6. The fundamental question is can British foreign policy successfully absorb the consequences of the growth and expansion of Taliban activity throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan? In addition this is not some far off problem that will only affect other countries. In fact, it will have a direct bearing on Britain’s security. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda and its affiliates would plot to kill and maim more Britons. So this is not only a conflict of enormous strategic importance but it is also pivotal to the defence of British political, economic and social dynamics. If the Taliban is ignored or assumed to be manageable, can we therefore afford to assume that this threat will not regularly arrive on our doorstep? These are the questions on which the stability of AfPak, and perhaps the strategic future of the United Kingdom will hinge.

Narco-Taliban and the Security Problems

7. Since the 2001 US-led liberation of Afghanistan, the poppy trade has played a critical destabilising role in corrupting elements within the Afghan police, provincial governments and bankrolling the resurgence of the Taliban. Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin. It is no coincidence that the provinces in Afghanistan that have the highest opium poppy cultivation also happen to be the provinces where the Taliban is virulently active. There is a direct connection to the manufacture and processing of opium that helps to fund and fuel the Taliban insurgency. Narco-Taliban is one of the biggest long-term challenges to Afghanistan’s security and stability.

8. Taliban commanders at the village level have expanded their activities related to drugs from collecting extortion and charging protection fees to running heroin refineries and engaging in kidnapping and other smuggling schemes. Drug profits flow up the chain of command within the Taliban and other insurgent and extremist organisations operating along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. These funds appear to play a key role in funding the operational costs of the Taliban.

9. The high rate of return on investment from opium poppy cultivation has driven an agricultural shift in Afghanistan from growing traditional crops to growing opium poppy. Despite the fact that only 12% of its land is arable, agriculture is a way of life for 70% of Afghans and is the country’s primary source of income. During good years, Afghanistan produced enough food to feed its people as well as supply a surplus for export. Its traditional agricultural products include wheat, corn, barley, rice, cotton, fruit, nuts, and grapes. However, its agricultural economy has suffered considerably from years of violent conflict, drought, and deteriorating infrastructure. In recent years, many poor farmers have turned to opium poppy cultivation to make a living because of the relatively high rate of return on investment compared to traditional crops. Consequently, Afghanistan’s largest and fastest cash crop is opium.

10. Western commanders and donor nations have tended to view Afghanistan’s opium trade as a law enforcement issue, often not considering its broader implications for trade, security, and development. The insurgency, meanwhile, is treated as a military matter. Equally, drug enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies have different priorities when it comes to Afghanistan despite the fact that narcotics trafficking and terrorist funding and attacks are all inter-connected. These divisions have stymied efforts to build a comprehensive strategy toward southern Afghanistan.

11. Taliban commanders tax farmers in pre-designated ‘territories’. They collect a 10% ushr or tax in some districts, while in others, local mullahs share the take. [2] The Taliban have even distributed leaflets ordering farmers to grow poppy. In addition, they are paying Afghan men up to US$ 200 a month to fight alongside them against NATO troops. [3] This is substantially more than the average Afghan police officer is paid by the Kabul Government. This has contributed significantly to some with Afghan’s police and military changing sides purely due to financial inducement and as a result putting at risk a number of British soldiers. Afghanistan's police are poorly trained, plagued by drug addiction and infiltrated by the Taliban especially at the lower entry level. [4] In one of the most high-profile incidents on 4 November 2009, five British soldiers were shot dead in Helmand by an Afghan policeman. [5]

12. To make matters worse, the problems plaguing Afghanistan have spilled over its borders. Drug trafficking and corruption also fuels growing instability in Pakistan, Iran, and Central Asia. If left unchecked, there is the ever-present risk that terrorists with global ambitions could tap into this source to launch attacks outside the region. Through this entire smuggling network which connects Pakistan and Afghanistan through narcotics and the Taliban, there is the prevailing nexus with trans-national terrorism. In December 2008, Khan Mohammed, a member of the Afghan Taliban was sentenced to two life terms in prison in the United States for drug trafficking and engaging in narco-terrorism. He was planning to conduct a rocket attack on the Jalalabad Airfield, an Afghan facility used jointly by US and NATO forces in Nangarhar Province. [6] Khan Mohammed justified his willingness to sell heroin by stating, ‘Whether it is by opium or by shooting, this is our common goal.’ [7]

13. Helmand Province, which is the source of 53% of all opium poppies in Afghanistan is considered to have the most acute security problems where the insurgent Taliban effectively controlled large parts of this province. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released their 2010 Afghan survey in September which revealed that opium cultivation in Helmand province had declined slightly from 69,833 hectares to 65,045 hectares. [8]

14. However, any decrease in Helmand was offset by a jump in cultivation in neighbouring Kandahar province, where the provincial government has not pushed anti-opium efforts. Kandahar, the focus of a current surge in US troops to rout Taliban insurgents from their southern stronghold has also become increasingly volatile over the past year. Cultivation in Kandahar jumped 30%.

15. The total opium poppy cultivation estimated for Afghanistan in 2010 did not change from 2009 and remained at 123,000 hectares while rising prices suggested it may cause a spike in the illicit crop in 2011. 98% of the total cultivation took place in nine provinces in the southern and western regions, including the most insecure provinces in the country. This further underlines the link between lawlessness, the Taliban, and opium cultivation observed since 2007.

16. Total opium production in 2010 was estimated at 3,600 metric tons (mt), which is a 48% decrease from 2009. The sharp decline was due to the spread of a disease, the causes of which are unknown, that affected opium fields in the major growing provinces, particularly Helmand and Kandahar. The disease started to appear in the fields after flowering in spring. This was too late to plant another crop. The total estimated farm-gate income of opium growing farmers amounted to US$ 604 million in 2010. This is a significant increase from 2009, when farm-gate income for opium was estimated at US$ 438 million. This year's stable crop comes despite years of programmes aimed at reducing the poppy crop, including subsidized seeds for other crops, vouchers for farmers, alternative job programmes and incentives for provinces to become ‘poppy-free.’

17. The governor of Helmand, Gulab Mangal, had instituted a counter-narcotics plan, known as Food Zone Programme which was funded by Britain and the US. It involved a mix of sticks and carrots which entailed a more aggressive counter-narcotics offensive, incentives to grow more legal crops, and the introduction of food zones to promote legal farming. The process required time to implement. The first phase of the Food Zone Programme supplied farmers with fertilizers and wheat seeds. Subsequently, opium cultivation in the food zone decreased by 37% and was mainly replaced by cereal crops. Outside the food zone, however, poppy production increased by 8%. [9]

18. The current distribution phase of the programme is aimed at farmers living in areas affected directly by February 2010’s Operation Moshtarak in Marjah, enabling the Afghan Government to deliver tangible governance and benefits to those affected. [10] Operation Moshtarak is designed to clear central Helmand of the Taliban and set the conditions for the Afghan Government to introduce increased security, stability, development and freedom of movement in the area. [11] The second phase includes a public awareness campaign highlighting the dangers of opium, while the third phase involves law enforcement activities, including eradication and bringing prosecutions against those who persist in growing poppy. The Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) is also supporting and mentoring the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan to assist them with the interception of those involved in the narcotics trade. The programme covers six districts, Lashkar Gah, Nad-e-Ali, Nahr-e-Siraj, Garmsir, Sangin, and Musa Qala. Conclusive results on the Food Zone Programme are yet to be established and may take several years before the true impact is known.

19. Both Helmand and Kandahar have always had a strong Taliban presence, serving as hubs for the northern Helmand narcotics network, the production of IEDs, and weapons storage caches. [12] Sangin and Kajaki initially became centres of concentration for the Taliban after they were dislodged from Musa Qala in December 2007. When US forces retook Musa Qala they found 11 tons of opium stored in warehouses there. [13] Since then, the Taliban have expanded their presence and organised mobile courts and effective shadow governance structures in the districts, dispensing speedy and effective edicts to the population. [14]

20. The Taliban’s presence in north-eastern Helmand has increased significantly following February’s Operation Moshtarak in Marjah, an area that had served as the main safe haven for them in Helmand. [15] Now that US and Afghan forces are operating in large numbers in southern and central Helmand, many Taliban fighters have relocated to the north to avoid coming under heavy fire.

21. Another main contributor to the volatile narcotics-insurgency cycle continued to be the scarcity of economic opportunities available to most Afghans. Economic growth was quite high at around 8%. [16] However, this growth is usually and largely fuelled by foreign aid, which accounts for more than 90% of public expenditures, and the illegal narco-economy that, by conservative estimates, accounted for one-third of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product. [17]

22. Therefore, a large portion of the economic growth was not driven by normal indigenous economic activity. Moreover, the foreign aid that trickles into Afghanistan symbolises only a fraction of the amount pledged at international donor conferences. A majority of the aid money that did reach Afghanistan was channelled through international agencies and organisations, not the Government, resulting in a large portion of the aid being spent on administrative costs such as consultant fees. It could be interpreted as a miscalculation for the Department for International Development (DFID) to not invest all its development money into Helmand to support the British campaign. Perhaps understandably DFID believed its goal is to promote the development of Afghanistan and not support the British military in their operations. This is why DFID channels 80% of its funding to Afghanistan through the Afghan Government. However, although the British are the second largest aid donors in the country, most Afghans are not aware of this, which undermines British efforts to win hearts and minds. When asked, Afghans referred to the French, Germans, and American efforts and seemed unaware of what the British were doing. [18] In the view of DFID, channelling assistance in this way was believed to increase the capacity and legitimacy of the Afghan Government. Unfortunately corruption, inefficiency and incompetence within the Afghan Government mean that money is actually being lost in the pipeline before it reaches those who need it.

23. The Helmandi economy functions significantly around criminality, corruption, and networks of narcotics traffickers. The dearth of schools, lack of human resources, and the blatant shortfall of governance, justice, and economic opportunities provide opportunities for exploitation by criminals, narcotics dealers, and the Taliban. It is therefore problematic to draw clear-cut distinctions between legal and criminal structures. This is a challenge in terms of a counter-insurgency and reconstruction strategy especially where perceptions of the state’s legitimacy amongst the populous are essential to the successful implementation of its moral and political authority.

24. Security Sector Reform (SSR) is identified as the cornerstone upon which the success of the entire state-building process depends. However, transformation rather than reform is the more appropriate way to describe the process in Afghanistan. The process faces a paradox that will be difficult to overcome. The SSR model requires a minimum level of security to function, a base line currently absent in Afghanistan. Relying on SSR to restore security and stability in the short-term has precipitated a premature acceleration of the process. The Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) are nowhere near the level or capacity to assume counter-insurgency operations on their own whilst at the same time providing effective security to the Afghan people.

Land and Water

25. One of the flaws of the counter-insurgency doctrine has been a failure to identify or address the causes for which the majority of Pashtuns, not directed by the Taliban, are disgruntled and disillusioned. This especially includes land and water disputes.

26. Land grabbing and water disputes have been a major source of contention among tribes and individuals within Helmand, often leading to disputes and subsequent violence within and across communities. The critical problem of land theft is a vital issue almost entirely ignored by both the Government and the west. [19] In fact, the overwhelming majority of international funds concerning rule of law is spent on criminal justice issues, with very little spent on civil disputes that often can spiral out of control and lead to violence and other crimes. Considering the extent of such disputes, ignoring land and water disputes could destabilise many areas within Helmand. On a national level, the Asia Foundation’s 2009 Survey identified disputes over land and property as accounting for 63% of all civil and criminal disputes, while crimes constituted 19% of disputes. [20]

27. Warlords are frequently involved in such disputes, which is complicated by the unusual extension of immunity in 2004 to actions alleged to have been committed before parliamentarians took office that in turn has led to a culture of impunity. The same warlords who gained immunity by taking public office as parliamentarians have been engaged in grabbing land that often belongs to people who had left during the last 30 years of conflict. [21] In Muktar, an area of Lashkar Gah, refugees returned from Pakistan to find that President Karzai‘s assurance that land would be restored did not occur. Instead cronies of former notorious Helmand Governor Sher Mohammed Akhonzada had occupied and taken the land in their absence, leading to unrest and Muktar becoming one of the more pro-Taliban areas of the city. In some cases, the ANP has been involved in not resolving but perpetuating disputes. [22] Such land grabbing and corruption by warlords and ANP risks the stability of many Helmandi districts.

28. Presently, little information exists as to who Helmandis turn to for resolution of land disputes and whether a land commission comprised of tribal elders and community leaders could be formed in various districts to hear and resolve such issues. Partnering with local Afghan non-government organisations that already have personnel on the ground in Helmand could help bridge these information gaps, identify leaders and potential commission members and initiate engagement with these individuals.

29. While a Land Commission has been set up in Lashkar Gah with the help of the Helmand PRT and overseen by Governor Gulab Mangal‘s office, it has very little reach outside of the city itself especially as it is undermanned and under-resourced. When the counter-insurgency military operations within Helmand are deemed to be complete, a plethora of land disputes and a vacuum of leadership could destabilise the area, risking the NATO and Afghan military‘s ability to effectively hold onto the area. Thus, working with tribal elders and potentially expanding the reach of land commissions to hear such disputes is an important step forward.

30. Many disputes in Helmand also concern use of irrigation canals, leading to contention among tribes and individuals within Helmand and often escalating to violence within and across communities. The best way ahead may be to informally form shuras that bring together different tribal elders to meet face-to-face to discuss and resolve disputes. District government officials employing irrigation and agricultural specialists could play a big role in informally resolving disputes regarding water and land, thereby reducing potential violence and instilling trust and confidence in district government. Addressing land and water disputes is crucial in winning hearts and minds and garnering local support for the Government.

Strategic Communication

31. British troops have sacrificed their lives and futures in order to help rebuild Afghanistan and it is a concern that the Taliban have implemented and developed a well-rehearsed narrative on the notion that the British army is in Afghanistan to seek revenge for 19th century defeats. As the former Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef, stated,

Another strategic mistake [by the US] was to allow the British to return to the south, or Afghanistan in general. The British Empire had fought three wars with Afghanistan, and their main battles were with the Pashtun tribes in southern Afghanistan. They were responsible for the split of the tribal lands, establishing the Durand Line. Whatever the reality might be, British troops in southern Afghanistan, in particular in Helmand, will be measured not only on their current actions but by the history they have, the battles that were fought in the past. The local population has not forgotten, and many believe, neither have the British. Many villages that see heavy fighting and casualties today are the same that did so some ninety years ago…The biggest mistake of American policy makers so far might be their profound lack of understanding of their enemy. [23]

32. If grotesque distortions like this are left unchallenged then unfortunately some Afghans may end up believing the lies and distortions. Yet there is no effective counter-narrative to dispel the myths and half-truths aimed at undermining the British presence. If there is no policy for a strategic communication approach then Afghans will only be hearing one perspective and that is from the Taliban.

33. Afghanistan lacks communications infrastructure that would enable ordinary Afghans to have access to technology in order to obtain and receive accurate information. This situation benefits the Taliban to disseminate uncontested versions of their message and propaganda.

34. One of the most effective ways the Taliban are able to disseminate their doctrine is through the use of what are called ‘night letters’. Night letters are leaflets or letters attached to doors or walls to inform or threaten. They are an effective means of communication in areas where access to other media is limited such as Helmand province. The contents of the night letters are usually warnings or instructions to the local population to refrain from engagement with foreign forces and the Afghan Government or taking part in elections.

35. The use of night letters is particularly effective because the Taliban can move in and out of villages and towns unnoticed compared to how British forces move in and out of towns. Whereas the British forces want to be seen and openly convey information, the Taliban may not want to be seen in order to propagate fear into the local population by demonstrating through night letters they can be around anytime. There are instances where the night letters effectiveness is apparent, as a Time Magazine article by Ayrn Baker would indicate:

36. Such is the impact of night letters, in some southern provinces that they have slowed government services and brought reconstruction projects to a halt because people are too scared and intimidated. In Kandahar province, many police officers have quit, medical clinics have been shut down. Even schools that have been burnt down were notified in advance by night letters warning parents to keep their children home. [24] Instances like this demonstrate the ability of the Taliban to spread fear. Coalition and Afghan forces cannot be everywhere at once. Since British and Afghan forces wear uniforms and are visible, it is easy to tell when they are present. Their presence reassures the populace of their safety. The Taliban however, can move wherever and whenever there are no government forces present and spread their fear.

37. The Taliban effectively communicate to the people that they will be the ones who will remain when the western forces withdraw. This is a difficult strategy to counter. The Taliban will be able to continue its use of night letters in its information strategy so long as they are free to move and operate where there are no international or Afghan forces present. While efforts should continue to directly confront Taliban fighters, it must not be looked upon as the way to undermine the Taliban’s ability to influence and intimidate the population. Night letters do far more to sow fear among the Afghans than airstrikes do to make them feel secure.

38. The Taliban have also begun developing other methods to reach their audience such as the distribution of DVDs, mobile phone messaging, radio messages and websites.

39. The use of DVDs to spread propaganda by the Taliban is a tool they most likely learned by observing al-Qaeda. The Taliban distribute DVDs containing video footage of attacks against coalition troops and Afghan forces. The distribution of DVDs enables the Taliban to visually refute claims made against them by the Afghan Government.

40. Other methods that the Taliban have employed in their efforts to spread their agenda have been radio broadcasts and mobile phone text messaging. The Taliban have had little success with radio broadcasting due to their lack of being able to maintain a fixed broadcasting station inside Afghanistan coupled with the ability of coalition forces to jam the frequencies that they would transmit. [25] Mobile phone messages are becoming more ubiquitous as cell phone ownership is reported to be at 52% of the total Afghan population. This method seems to be the 21st century equivalent of a night letter for the Taliban. [26]

41. The acceptance of new technologies may have more to do with sustaining internal morale and increasing recruitment rather than a change in religious philosophy. The Taliban are willing to change their acceptance of new ideas if they appear to assist the Taliban in achieving their aims. Beside the need to sustain morale, the Taliban most likely realized they need to adapt their use of information tools to compete against the Afghan Government and British forces. When the Taliban rose to power, Afghanistan was devastated by the war against the Soviet Union. The current technologies did not exist at the time and as such the Taliban saw no need to embrace them in order to exert influence and fear. Since the Taliban’s overthrow, Afghanistan has seen an influx of new technologies as a result of reconstruction efforts which have now ironically been embraced by the Taliban who will use modern technology to instigate medieval brutality.

42. The methods by which the Taliban disseminate their messages have evolved not only from the first time they took control but also over the past nine years of war. They continue to have a firm control in disseminating night letters and the lack of physical British or Afghan Government security forces in all areas allows the Taliban to move freely, and appear to be in all places at once. New tools to disseminate messages allow the Taliban to effectively plant terror in the minds of audiences and also give the impression that they are omnipresent.

Enhancing National Unity through Social Cohesion

43. British film makers have been at the forefront in illustrating social issues that suggest that there have been some real success stories in Afghanistan’s transition from Taliban rule. In particular there have been grass-roots movements involving sports and entertainment which have broad mass-appeal and can also serve as a way of uniting the country.

44. Rohullah Nikpai, an ethnic Hazara, won Afghanistan’s first Olympic medal in taekwondo at the Beijing Games in 2008. It should have been an occasion for national unity. Yet few people apart from the Hazaras were happy about his success. Many Afghans expect sport teams and all other aspects of society to function like a coalition government, ensuring tribal, racial and regional balance. This expectation started with Karzai's Administration, the foundations of which were based on such principles. This is largely due to the legacy of the Taliban years. Back in May 2001, a Pakistani youth football team was arrested and had their heads forcibly shaved last year when they made the elementary mistake of wearing shorts on a tour to Kandahar. [27] Kabul's football stadium was regularly used by the Taliban for public amputations for convicted thieves and executions for murderers as well as for anyone that violated their dogmatic doctrine which included women who were either flogged, shot or stoned to death.

45. Yet sometimes sport provides a story which not only justifies its existence, but confirms its vast significance. The Afghanistan cricket team is such a story. They were only formed in the aftermath of the Operation Enduring Freedom towards the end of 2001. Only when thousands of Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan did they properly learn to study and appreciate the game. Upon their return, they continued to play and, as these things do, it filtered down to new players who were similarly entranced. The country, did not become an affiliate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) until 2001 and didn’t have a single proper pitch until 2008. Nevertheless the national side has gone from being a non-entity to gaining successive promotions from Division Five of the ICC League to getting agonisingly close to qualifying for the 2011 World Cup. The saga is so implausible, that it reads like a film script.

46. The Oscar-winning British film director and avid cricket fan Sam Mendes has helped to produce a documentary, Out of the Ashes, that records the Afghanistan cricket team’s rise. His involvement began after he was sent a first version by the director, Timothy Albone, that charted the team’s early, and improbable, success. Out of the Ashes premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 17 June 2010 and screened as part of BBC4’s Storyville. [28]

47. The film follows the team’s coach, Taj Malik, as he prepares his charges for one of the first rounds of the World Cup qualifiers, division five of the World Cricket League, in Jersey in 2008, against such cricketing minnows as Japan and Nepal. Successfully progressing on to winning divisional tournaments in Tanzania, Buenos Aires and South Africa, it all comes down to one match against Canada in the West Indies for a place in the 2011 World Cup. Unfortunately they are beaten, missing out on a dream that began years ago in the chaotic aftermath of post-Taliban Afghanistan.

48. They do get however to qualify for the 2010 Twenty20 World Cup, the shorter and faster format of the game in the West Indies. Although they fail to make much impact, losing nobly against India and South Africa in a tournament that England ultimately won, simply to appear on the world stage after having barely any history of the game a decade ago is extraordinary.

49. The sport is growing apace at home despite the obvious drawbacks of the security threat from the Taliban. For the time being they will simply have to become accustomed, like Pakistan, to playing their home matches away. There is an essential need for developing the grass-roots of the sport in Afghanistan itself. This is what retired Afghan cricketer Ahmadzai Raees will be doing, running cricket camps in partnership with Dr Sarah Fane of the charity Afghan Connection, which works to build new schools, with concrete pitches, across the country. The Afghan cricket story is the one story that gives everyone hope. In 2009, Fane, Raees and the Afghan team held a cricket camp for 50 children. 12,000 boys and girls turned up. It is the responsibility of cricket's broader community to help develop the game at a lower level. It costs $3,000 (£1,995) to lay a concrete pitch at one of Afghan Connection's new schools. [29]

50. Cricket is not without history in Afghanistan. British troops brought cricket to Kabul in 1839 and Britain can play a key role helping to nurture and develop the game of cricket in Afghanistan. If successfully cultivated, cricket can serve as a powerful unifying factor in the country. Security sector reform within Afghanistan’s police and military continues apace and trains Afghans to a sufficient level to be operationally effective but what it does not do is teach Afghans solidarity, nation building and a sense of what it means to be Afghan first rather than affiliating with their ethnic cleavage. Yet sport, and in the case of Afghanistan can provide a feeling of camaraderie that is significantly lacking in the country’s political and military establishments. Although the majority of players in the national team are Pashtuns with a few Uzbeks this is a work in progress. Britain could therefore gift a precious legacy by providing funding for the game for making more pitches, providing equipment, arranging tours and awarding scholarships. Importantly it is essential to let the Afghans own the game of cricket in their country. Britain needs to create the infrastructure but let the Afghans continue to develop it on their own so they can win the trust of the Afghan people.

51. Under the Taliban, music and other forms of entertainment were banned. Their feudal doctrine took Afghanistan back to the Middle Ages. Today pop culture is slowly returning to the country through the producers and performers of Afghan Star, the country's version of The X Factor, which airs on Tolo TV. If western leaders are looking for a way to persuade the people within their countries that we should have long-term commitment to Afghanistan, they couldn't find a better weapon than the film Afghan Star. The show has been hugely successful just as similar versions of the singing competition that air all over the globe. Perhaps more meaningfully, the volume of mobile text votes cast by viewers in favour of their preferred performer reflects a form of democracy through a culture that has sorely lacked it. Eleven million Afghans, one third of the country, watch Afghan Star. The show is chronicled in British director Havana Marking's documentary film of the same name which won high praise at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. [30] It was the UK's entry for the 2010 Oscar category for best foreign-language film, Afghan Star follows an entire season of Afghanistan's version of "American Idol".

52. Despite this not everyone is happy with Afghan Star. Afghanistan's guardians of Islamic values, the Ulema Council, protested that Afghan Star was not part of Afghan culture. In 2009, a female finalist on the show received death threats and was forced into hiding after her head scarf fell to her shoulders during a performance. [31] Women having equal rights with men in Afghanistan has nothing to do with cultural sensitivities despite the dogma of some.

53. It is more than just another documentary. It offers a fascinating glimpse of Afghanistan with a special focus on how the aspirations of its young people where 60% of the Afghan population is under 21 and this may end up having a far bigger impact on its future than its current political and military struggles. The show serves as a platform for the young people of the country to embrace pop music as a symbol of modernisation and hope for the future. More than 2,000 people audition for a chance to compete and although that figure is nowhere near the size of those that enter the X Factor, it is still a large number where televisions are not found in every house and conservative traits still permeate Afghan society and culture. [32] The simple act of seeing music on TV, for a country still emerging from a painful era where music was viewed as sacrilegious, cannot be understated.

54. In 2001, after the Taliban were ousted, the first thing people did was bring out their radios and phonographs and start playing music. Music became the sound of liberation and its why young people have so eagerly embraced the show. It gave them something they could be proud of, Afghans singing Afghan music for Afghans. It provided the youth with a lifeline for safe entertainment in the country. The show also makes a huge statement for Afghans by bringing together contestants of different tribal ethnicities as well as allowing the participation of several female contestants, a huge leap in a country that has essentially been run by a male-dominated tribal elder system.

Preserving the Rights of Women

55. Under the Taliban girls were not allowed to go to school and fewer than 900,000 boys were enrolled. In the same period, university enrolment was only 7,881. In 2010, nearly seven million students are now enrolled in primary and secondary schools, 37% are female, and university enrolment has grown to 62,000. [33]

56. Once the Taliban seized Kabul in September 1996, their war on women’s rights began with a vengeance. Girls over the age of eight were forbidden to attend school and working women were forced to remain in the home. [34] One can imagine the drastic loss of capacity suffered by both the education and health systems in Afghanistan, where women more traditionally held professional positions. The compulsory wearing of the burqa in public spaces was not only a physical and psychological burden but an economic one, as many Afghan women could not afford the cost of the garment and had no choice but to share with their neighbours, thus being confined within the home for days. [35]

57. Women’s participation in the Afghan economy was virtually eliminated, as they were prohibited from showing their hands during monetary exchange. Women were prohibited from leaving the home without the accompaniment of a male relative. In hospitals, women could only be medically examined when fully clothed, making an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan impossible. [36] The Taliban perpetrated acts of rape, abduction and forced marriage all in the disingenuous name of ensuring that Afghan women lived in security, dignity and honour. [37] Since the defeat of the Taliban, some progress has been made in improving the lives of women. However, the current Taliban resurgence presents a serious threat to the safety, security and rights of the women and girls of Afghanistan.

58. The Afghan Government's attempts to seek reconciliation with the Taliban will harm women's rights, the US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch says. Women living in areas where the Taliban have regained strength have suffered intimidation, violence and even death threats. The comments of Sabrina Saqib, Afghanistan's youngest parliamentarian, are most pertinent. She said ‘Women came back to life after the Taliban’. [38]

59. After the Taliban were driven from power in 2001, women in Afghanistan, even in conservative areas in the south, returned to jobs as teachers, civil servants and health workers. But the intimidation of women has increased as the Taliban have regained strength in those areas. A report by Human Rights Watch entitled The Ten-Dollar Talib and Women's Rights, warns that,

Afghan women want an end to the conflict. But as the prospect of negotiations with the Taliban draws closer, many women fear that they may also pay a heavy price for peace…Reconciliation with the Taliban, a group synonymous with misogynous policies and the violent repression of women, raises serious concerns about the possible erosion of recently gained rights and freedoms. [39]

60. The Taliban has been sending threatening letters, the infamous ‘night letters’, to women to warn them to give up work. In one case, a female aid worker, who had been receiving threats from someone claiming to be a member of the Taliban, was shot as she left her office in Kandahar. She later died. [40]

61. The Mirwais Meena girls' school in Kandahar had a student body of over 1,300 students. On 12 November 2008, several girls were disfigured and two blinded after an attack from the Taliban. The attack came as the girls and their teachers were leaving the school. Men on motorbikes, wielding what appeared to be water pistols, squirted acid on several groups of girls and their teachers. Many were wearing burqas, but they were targeted just the same. The attacks shocked the country, and the world. Footage of the injured girls was shown on CNN, the BBC and other international media. Yet despite the Government's well-publicised arrest of ten men who have been accused of involvement in the incident, the student body had been severely traumatised by the attack. [41]

62. Mohammad Daoud Daoud, the Deputy Interior Minister for Counter-Narcotics, stated that the men had been paid the equivalent of US$ 2,000 for each girl they attacked. Education and security officials need to take robust measures to protect the students. The authorities should provide buses to take them to the school, to avoid the dangers of the road. [42] Schools are routinely torched and teachers murdered in areas where the Taliban hold sway.

63. In May 2009, pupils were lining up outside their classrooms for morning assembly at their school in Mahmud Raqi village, Kapisa Province, when one girl collapsed unconscious. Suddenly more girls started to collapse because of a gas poisoning attack by the Taliban. In total there were 90 Afghan school girls rushed to hospital, several slipped into comas. Six teachers were also admitted. It was the third such attack against a girls' school in Afghanistan in the same month, raising fears that the Taliban are resorting to increasingly vicious methods to terrorise young women out of education. Large parts of Kapisa are now under the control of men loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a warlord with Taliban links. [43]

64. Bibi Aisha, a young Afghan woman made headlines when she appeared on a cover of Time Magazine with the caption ‘What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan’. At 16, Aisha was handed over to her husband's father and 10 brothers, who she claims were all members of the Taliban in Oruzgan. She eventually ran away but was caught by police in Kandahar. And although running away is not a crime, in places throughout Afghanistan, it is treated as one if you are a woman. Eventually her father-in-law found her and took her back to her abusive home. She was taken to the Taliban for ‘dishonouring’ her husband's family. The court ruled that her nose and ears must be cut off, an act carried out by her husband in the mountains of Oruzgan, where they left her to die. [44] Tragically, Aisha is only one example of thousands of girls and women in Afghanistan who are treated this way. Aisha’s situation would be institutionalised. The UK needs to continue to robustly support the rights of women in Afghanistan.

65. The threat is not only to Afghan women. Britons that have travelled to Afghanistan for the purpose of working as teachers, doctors and to help distribute aid have come under attack. One of the most disturbing cases involved Karen Wo, a surgeon from London, who was with a group of foreign nationals working with the charity International Assistance Mission (IAM) when they were ambushed by men carrying assault rifles in a forested area of Badakhshan province. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the murders. [45] The attack, the largest massacre in years of aid workers in Afghanistan, offered chilling evidence of the increasing insecurity in the northern part of the country and added to fears that the Taliban insurgency has turned even more vicious.

The Afghan and Pakistan Taliban

66. The stabilisation of Afghanistan, to a very large extent, depends on the nature of that country’s 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 nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 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. [46]

67. 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. Afghanistan's promotion of Pashtunistan, although a moderate form of nationalism and the very antithesis to the Taliban doctrine, has brought retaliation from Pakistan since 1947.

68. There is an urgent need to resolve the longstanding border dispute and the Pashtunistan issue in order to improve the prospects of counter-terrorism co-operation 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 in as much as it would allay Pakistani fears that a strong Afghanistan would revitalise past claims on the Pashtun regions of Pakistan.

69. 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 recognised.

70. The Taliban is not a homogenous group. It has many factions and is a mixture of characters including ideological, warlords, land owners, criminals, drug dealers and people out of work. The displaced and disillusioned Taliban youth of today were moulded by their country’s history of violence and found solace and purpose in an extremely radical interpretation of Islam. Distorted versions of Sunni Deobandism and Pashtunwali, the tribal social code of the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan, became the basis of the Taliban ideology. [47]

71. Perhaps the most significant Taliban faction is Mullah Omar’s Quetta Shura based in or near the city of Quetta in north-western Pakistan, a short distance from the border with the Kandahar province of Afghanistan. Ever since the Quetta Shura started re-organising in 2002 the leadership has been dominated by former members of the Taliban Government. In October 2006, Mullah Omar appointed a new leadership council with 12 members and three advisors. On it were some new names such as Sheikh Abd al-‘Ali, now acting as the chief legal advisor to the Quetta Shura, and Maulavi Abd al-Kabir, currently head of political relations. [48]

72. In May 2008, a Quetta Shura publication contained an article describing its organisational structure. According to this article, the Quetta Shura’s organisation consists of the leader Mullah Omar, the deputy Mullah Baradar, a 19-member military shura and a 15-member legislative shura led by a Sheikh Maulavi Abd al-‘Ali, which is primarily concerned with appointing judges and setting up sharia courts in areas under the Quetta Shura’s control. [49]

73. The network of warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin lead a deadly parallel faction to the Quetta Shura. Haqqani was part of the mujaheddin resistance in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, and both were allied with the Taliban Government during the Taliban regime. Jalaluddin Haqqani served as Taliban’s minister for tribal affairs. Today, his activities are largely carried out by Sirajuddin.

74. The Haqqanis have retained their separate identity from the Quetta Shura. They issue statements and videos through their own media outlets, as well as through postings on internet forums. [50] Yet in an interview with Sirajuddin conducted by a Pakistani journalist, he stated ‘we are fighting under the leadership of Amir al-Mu’minin [Mullah Omar]’. [51]

75. The Hizb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in contrast, turned down an offer to ally himself with the Taliban in 1996, and fled the country instead. He did not return until 2002, after the Taliban had been ousted from power. Hekmatyar has not sworn allegiance personally to Mullah Omar, and his party pursues an independent political strategy in Afghanistan, although it occasionally converges with that of the Quetta Shura. [52]

76. It is well known that after the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, many senior members left the organisation. Former Taliban officials have also actively joined political life in Afghanistan. In the Parliamentary elections in 2005 six former Taliban officials ran as candidates, and two managed to win seats in the Parliament. [53] This indicates a possible weakness of the Taliban’s coherence, but on the other hand, the Taliban Government was more diverse and included potential ‘moderates’.

77. Deep-rooted ties exist between Pashtun militants on both sides of the Durand Line, blurring the distinction between Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. [54] The term ‘Pakistani Taliban’ usually refers to a loose coalition of militant groups based in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Since December 2007, they have been known under the name Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TeTP), an umbrella organisation of perhaps as many as 40 groups led by the Waziristan-based militant Baitullah Mehsud. [55]

78. Baitullah Mehsud also established his own parallel government and he set up his own judicial system wherein Pashtuns, approached him for justice rather than resorting to judicial courts set up by the Government. The TeTP also divided their respective areas of South and North Waziristan into administrative zones and appointed military commanders over each region. These military commanders are answerable to the supreme commander of the local Taliban and the Taliban Shura of their respective tribe.

79. General Pervez Musharraf’s decision to send a brigade of Pakistani troops into the Shawal valley of North Waziristan in September 2001 marked a dramatic change in Pakistani policy in the FATA. Although the local population initially welcomed Musharraf’s troops in their mission to protect them against a perceived threat from the Afghan Northern Alliance, their goodwill did not last. Two years later, under immense US pressure, 70,000 Pakistani troops reluctantly fought tribal militants and a core-cadre of foreign fighters that fled Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime. However, rather than eliminate the foreign militants and restore control, the Pakistani military negotiated a highly flawed cease-fire and withdrawal on 7 February 2005.

80. As a part of the peace agreement, Baitullah Mehsud ‘pledged’ that he and his associates would not provide assistance to al-Qaeda and other terrorists, and would not launch operations against government forces. Baitullah Mehsud, at that time, explained that the peace agreement was in the interests of the tribal regions as well as in the interest of the Government of Pakistan. This has been more or less a consistent theme in his communications.

81. Fighting resumed however in July 2005, after Baitullah Mehsud accused the Government of breaking the terms of the truce. In September 2006, the Pakistani military negotiated yet another controversial truce with the militants, facilitated by tribal elders. At the time Musharraf was in the United States and hailed it as a ‘landmark agreement’ that world serve as a role model for future agreements. Yet, within a month the militants reneged on the deal and violence along the AfPak border area increased substantially.

82. If nothing else, the ‘peace deals’ tremendously raised Mehsud’s stature amongst his own men, and established him as a negotiating entity on a par with the Government, also allowing a respite to widen and further strengthen his support base. Mehsud further consolidated his hold, and established his Taliban credentials, when the Government conceded to his demand to free militant prisoners in return for releasing more than 240 Pakistani security personnel, seized by his fighters, and held hostage for two and half months.

83. The death of Baitullah Mehsud who was successfully targeted by a US drone strike in August 2009 failed to undermine the group’s operational capability. Baitullah’s successor Hakimullah Mehsud, in collaboration with the Haqqani Network, pulled off one of the most deadly and well-calculated terrorist attacks on 30 December 2009, when he sent a Jordanian, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, as a suicide bomber to wipe out an entire CIA unit at Forward Base Chapman in Khost who were active in gathering intelligence for the drone campaign in Pakistan.

84. The other significant aspect of this plot was that al-Qaeda only played a peripheral role. The attack was a joint operation by the Haqqani Network and the Mehsud clan. The Haqqani’s ensured that al-Balawi was able to move successfully from Khost into Pakistan where he was given operational instructions by Hakimullah Mehsud and even appeared in a video with him. The Mehsud’s then ensured that al-Balawi was able to move into Afghanistan to carry out the attack.

85. The Khost attack was a clear sign of the TeTP’s growing ambitions and intentions. They obviously want to target the US but previously lacked the logistical ability to plan something large beyond the scope of AfPak. However, that gap in ability was somewhat resolved when US resident, Faizal Shehzad, a Pakistani Pashtun, attempted to carry out a car bomb attack in New York’s Times Square on 1 May 2010. The vehicle failed to successfully detonate and the plot failed but it highlighted concerns that the TeTP had launched a strategy to recruit Pashtuns based in the west for carrying out future attacks in North America and Europe.

86. To this day, the Mehsud clan continues to inflict damage on the Pakistani military and police throughout the country. Baitullah Mehsud created an infrastructure and network that remains intact. Following his death, the Pakistani military failed to implement an effective strategy to systematically dismantle that infrastructure. As a result the TeTP used the time to reassemble and plot and plan new attacks not just against the Government, police and military but also to assist the Afghan Taliban in its assault on US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.

87. The insurgency is particularly dangerous because it has sparked an identity crisis throughout the Pashtun belt in Pakistan. The local population, although at varying levels of development ranging from the contemporary to the conservative, maintains a common heritage in Pashtunwali or the Pathan way of life.

88. Pakistan had gambled for strategic depth in Afghanistan, but has instead 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.

89. Just like the Afghan Taliban organically contributed to the formation of the TeTP, the Pakistan Taliban has also spawned new entities. On 30 March 2009, militants launched a deadly assault on a police training centre outside Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab Province. Eight police cadets were killed. [56] Less than a month earlier, on 3 March, gunmen in Lahore ambushed members of the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team, killing eight people. Punjab, the most populated of Pakistan’s provinces, had largely escaped the bloodshed plaguing the country’s troubled northwest. Yet since 2007, violence has escalated in the province. The bold terrorist attacks in Pakistan’s heartland within Punjab Province and in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad show that local logistical support for these attacks is attributable to what is often labelled the ‘Punjabi Taliban’. The major factions of this network include the dregs from Sunni sectarian outfits the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Jaish-e-Muhammad. Members of these groups are increasingly collaborating with the Pakistan Taliban elements to conduct attacks in major cities. The irony is that these outfits once maintained close ties to Pakistan’s military establishment.

90. 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.

91. No politician in Islamabad appears to be ready to take upon himself the task 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) patronised 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. As a part of the support for the mujaheddin in the 1980s, the military ruler in Pakistan at that time Zia ul-Haq gave the ulema a more powerful position in the Pakistani state. [57] 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.

92. 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. [58]

The Pakistani Military and the Drone Strikes

93. In terms of Afghanistan, the questions that need to be asked are that does the Pakistani military envisage the same future for Afghanistan as the West does? And does the Pakistani military view the Afghan Taliban as a threat to regional stability as the West does?

94. On 22 July 2010 Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, emerged as a greatly strengthened figure after the fragile civilian government bowed to pressure to extend his tenure as Chief of Army Staff (COAS) by an unprecedented three years. Kayani, now has the remit to launch Pakistan's foreign policy at a crucial moment in Afghanistan, where the army is manoeuvring to forge a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban insurgency. The sudden move underscores the army's strength over the democratically elected government of President Asif Ali Zardari, which has been racked by political turmoil. Kayani will now outlast the Prime Minister and the President and is likely to oversee the next general election. The army chief also commands more than 600,000 men, the sixth largest army in the world, and an officer corps that controls sizeable business and property interests. [59]

95. Kayani has resisted all attempts by civilians to exercise control over it. Surprisingly the general is well-regarded in some quarters in the west despite the fact that he led the intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) from 2004 to 2007, exactly the period when the Taliban staged their comeback in Afghanistan. In Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars, the author depicts Kayani as unreliable and capable of telling only half the story. [60] Following Kayani’s extension as COAS, he is now leading the Pakistan military's efforts to influence a new reconciliation policy in Kabul that will factor in Taliban elements of the Afghan Taliban that retain close ties with the military.

96. In late January 2010, there was dramatic news that Mullah Baradar Akhund, the Quetta Shura Taliban’s second-in-command and the head of its military committee, was apprehended during a raid on a madrassa near Karachi in an operation by Pakistani authorities. Initial reports about the arrest were confusing, but the news was certainly welcome. The arrest was the first detention of a rahbari shura or leadership council member since the capture of Mullah Obaidullah Akhund in 2007, and this operation was apparently led by the ISI. [61] The ISI traditionally played a key role in protecting the fugitive Quetta Shura Taliban leadership in Pakistan. Baradar’s surprise arrest was quickly followed by a wave of other detentions: Maulavi Abdul Kabir, the former Taliban Governor of Nangarhar and the eastern provinces and also a member of the rahbari shura, was picked up a few weeks later. [62]

97. Pakistan’s sudden co-operation in targeting the Quetta Shura’s core leadership after almost a decade of feigning ignorance about its presence within the country surprised many and raised expectations in the west that Islamabad’s decision signalled a quiet but decisive shift in Pakistan’s geostrategic policy. Unfortunately, the realities are less encouraging. It then transpired that the arrested Taliban were in secret negotiations with President Karzai to bring an end to the conflict and isolate Mullah Omar within the Quetta Shura. It’s not clear who created the path for these negotiations but nevertheless the prospect of significantly undermining the Taliban and their operational capability had become a realistic possibility. However, the fly in the ointment was the fact that Baradar, who had first-hand knowledge of the nature and the extent of the Taliban network in Afghanistan and Pakistan, also knew details of their linkages with the ISI. Baradar’s negotiating with Karzai had not been sanctioned by the ISI and this angered them considerably, therefore, Baradar was no longer worth protecting. [63]

98. The arrests of some senior errant members of the Quetta Shura in Pakistan are, firstly, an attempt by Pakistan to seize control over any process of negotiations and reconciliation that its military leaders believe is both imminent and inevitable. Secondly, seizing some Taliban officials who do not serve Pakistan’s current purposes is a signal to the Afghan Taliban that all discussions about reconciliation with Kabul must occur solely through Pakistani interlocutors and in a manner that is mindful of Pakistani interests. Such a reminder, even to the Quetta Shura, is a clear warning of who is in charge.

99. Directly because of dissatisfaction with Pakistan’s efforts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the US began using drones carrying Hellfire missiles to eliminate members of al-Qaeda. Over time, the gap widened between the US demand for Pakistan to do more and Islamabad’s ability to deal with militancy in FATA. The use of drones escalated significantly in 2008 and continued to increase throughout 2010.

100. Drone strikes have been successful in eliminating senior members of al-Qaeda such as Abu Hamza al-Rabia, Abu Laith al-Libi, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed, Fateh al-Masri, Fahd Mohammad Ahmed al-Quso and British citizens Rashif Rauf and Abdul Jabber.

101. The use of drones are part of an evolving US strategy to implement pre-emptive strikes to deter or dismantle any potential terrorist plots that al-Qaeda and its affiliates are planning. Electronic chatter combined with better information from sources in the AfPak border area and better surveillance technology have made this possible.

102. It was in 2008 that the US substantially stepped up the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over north-west Pakistan. Since then, the Hellfire missiles and drones that launch them have become a common theme in counter-terrorist operations in the border region of Afghanistan-Pakistan. The importance of the drone strikes is reflected in the fact that the Obama administration, which has moved away from the Bush presidency on issues like Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, has sought to intensify the use of pilotless aircrafts to target al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

103. Pakistan’s official response to the drone strikes is ambiguous about its consent for the drone attacks. The response of the old Pervez Musharraf regime was generally muted, probably due to increasing domestic political pressure. The current Zardari Government in Islamabad is more vocal in opposing the drone attacks, and frequently protesting the civilian casualties. The issue, however, continues to be confusing for public perceptions. No drone strike can take place without the consent of Islamabad. It would harm the Zardari Government if they publicly supported the air strikes but it serves them better to privately condone them whilst publicly condemning them.

104. Despite the success in eliminating senior members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban the drone strikes have proved to be controversial as they also result in civilian casualties. As a result the drone attacks cause significant anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. The question is what is collaterally acceptable and what is the balance between eliminating high profile targets whilst trying to reduce civilian fatalities? It is worth recalling that the Obama Administration has made it clear that they will do things differently to the Bush Administration, whether it is on Guantánamo Bay or Iraq. The one thing that has remained consistent is the drone strikes. The problem is that the US has lost faith and trust with the ISI in rounding up these people on the ground. It felt that there was a leakage of information. Actionable intelligence was sometimes being passed to the terrorists. The solution that the Bush Administration came up with was drone strikes, which are quick and decisive. The fact that the Obama Administration is continuing with that, shows that it is having tangible results. In the absence of ground troops being deployed we will continue to see drone strikes take place.

105. To supply over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, NATO relies on road convoys with dozens of trucks to carry through supplies. It is a key lifeline for supplies going into Afghanistan. Up to 80% of NATO's non-lethal supplies into Afghanistan are through mountain passes along the Pakistan border, through the fabled Khyber Pass, near Peshawar, and Spin Boldak in the south. The Khyber Pass was closed down by the Taliban seven times in 2010, and convoys were unable to get through. Supplies have also been brought into northern Afghanistan via Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. [64]

106. However, increasingly these convoys are coming under savage attack by the Taliban. And these ambushes will get worse, which could impair NATO's efforts to keep a supply lifeline running to its troops in forts and camps scattered across the mountainous country. The main Kabul-Kandahar highway was once a showpiece for how western aid would modernise Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Repaved in 2003, the 300-mile highway is now pocked with craters from roadside bombs. Travellers face three or four Taliban checkpoints along the way. Trucking firms have paid local Taliban commanders from $5,000 to $6,000 for the safe passage of each fuel tanker along the highway. [65]

107. Pakistan had stopped NATO convoys crossing the Khyber Pass in response to a NATO air strike on 30 September 2010 in which three Pakistani soldiers were killed when NATO helicopters strayed into Pakistani territory while chasing Taliban militants from Afghanistan. Unfortunately there is a perception that keeping the NATO supply line vulnerable suits the Pakistani military's strategy of creating favourable conditions for its proxy groups in Afghanistan. What remains a worrying potential is if the continued drone strikes in Pakistan aimed at terrorists inadvertently kill members of the armed forces. This could trigger the Pakistani military to close the Khyber Pass for NATO convoys in the future which in turn could put Washington in direct confrontation with Islamabad.

The British Dimension

108. British foreign policy needs to factor in four future potential scenarios related to Pakistan. Firstly, how will the UK react and respond if another terrorist attack on British soil, like 7/7, is traced back to Pakistan? Secondly, what will Britain’s position be should and when the security situation in Pakistan deteriorates to an alarming level especially in the urban heartland in and around Islamabad? Thirdly, what can Britain do to ensure that civilian rule in Pakistan remains intact and blunt any attempt by the military to launch a coup? Fourthly, if another attack takes place in India, like the one in 2008 in Mumbai, and the launch pad is from Pakistan, what will the Government be able to do to prevent a military escalation between India and Pakistan?

109. On 6 August 2010, British Prime Minister David Cameron met with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. Their meeting attracted extra significance following Cameron’s candid remarks in Bangalore, India, in the preceding week, where he stated ‘We want to see a strong and a stable and a democratic Pakistan…But we cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able in any way to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the world’. [66]

110. With these remarks, Cameron became the first western leader to formally identify the ‘elephant in the room’ which is that elements in Pakistan have, since the September 11 attacks, adopted a strategic policy of covertly supporting terrorist groups like the Taliban factions of the Quetta Shura and Haqqani Network that have launched deadly attacks against Afghan, ISAF and US troops in Afghanistan. [67] Another unresolved blot on Pakistan’s record is the pervading presence of the home-grown terrorist group, the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), that carried out the 2008 Mumbai Siege Attacks in which 170 people were killed including six Americans. [68] Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the former investigating magistrate from France stated that the ‘Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is no longer a Pakistani movement with only a Kashmir political or military agenda. Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is a member of al-Qaeda. Lashkar-e-Tayyaba has decided to expand violence worldwide’. [69]

111. What is most relevant about the Mumbai plot is that this was terrorism by remote control. The gunmen were just pawns being guided by their handlers in Pakistan who gave instructions to them through using satellite phones. The handlers were watching the siege unfolding on television and giving the gunmen regular real time updates as to what the Indian security agencies were planning, and how the world was viewing what was transpiring. Many have said that the Mumbai siege attacks have set a dangerous precedent in the type of attack that can take place in hotels and the concern of it being replicated in New York, London, Paris, Berlin or elsewhere. Hotel security will always be an issue of concern and determined terrorists will always find a way. What is equally relevant is how the use of media and especially television news was used to guide the gunmen and enabled them to move with stealth combing their way through ten locations creating devastation along the way.

112. The person who did the reconnaissance and scouting for targets in Mumbai was an American-Pakistani national, David Headley. Headley fits into the type of person that terrorist groups are looking to recruit. A western-educated individual with a US or European Union passport for ease of travel and with western social skills. These attributes enabled Headley to travel easily to India and Denmark. The potential of Britons being recruited by the LeT to fill a similar task is a disturbing possibility. On 17 March 2006, Mohammed Ajmal Khan, was jailed for nine years after admitting directing a terrorist organisation, including providing weapons and funds to the LeT. Khan, from Coventry, UK, received an eight-year term for his involvement with the group and was sentenced to a further year for contempt of court.

113. The Pakistan-Afghanistan border region constitutes a significant threat to western national security interests. 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 co-operate to carry out attacks in the UK.

114. Cameron’s comments do not form an original starting point but, in fact, are part of a gradual evolution of thought in the West that the problems in Afghanistan, India, as well as the potential global impact, are intrinsically tied to the security challenges in Pakistan. Cameron’s predecessor, Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, had stated in 2009 that Pakistan has become not just a ‘breeding ground for terrorism’ but the ‘crucible of terrorism’. [70] Prior to that, in 2008, whilst in Pakistan, Brown revealed that ‘Three quarters of the most serious plots investigated by the British authorities have links to al-Qaeda in Pakistan’. He added that ‘The time has come for action, not words’. [71]

115. Senior figures from the Obama Administration have also commented on this issue. Speaking to local journalists in Lahore in 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chided Pakistani officials for failing to pursue al-Qaeda leaders inside their borders, ‘Al-Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002…I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to’. [72] Therefore, in this light, the context of Cameron’s comments have followed an inevitable trajectory.

116. Despite repeated statements by some officials in the Obama Administration in Washington that Pakistan is working hard to crack down on militants, a private White House review uses unusually tough language to suggest the Pakistani military is not doing nearly enough to confront the Taliban and al-Qaeda, according to a leaked report to Congress. The report notes that from March to June 2010, the Pakistani military ‘continued to avoid military engagements that would put it in direct conflict with Afghan Taliban or [al-Qaeda] forces in North Waziristan. This is as much a political choice as it is a reflection of an under-resourced military prioritizing its targets’. [73]

117. The new tough line from the White House in the report to Congress comes as Obama faces increasing pressure from fellow Democrats to get tough with Pakistan. Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested that the Pakistani Government is selective in its crackdowns. He said, ‘They have gone after some terrorist targets inside Pakistan but the ones they go after are the ones that threaten the Pakistan Government’. [74]

118. The institution where most of the criticism has centred regarding Pakistan’s mixed record on counter-terrorism, is the powerful military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). Since 9/11, the west has become increasingly dependent on the ISI and the Pakistani military in terms of intelligence co-operation as regards terrorist groups like al-Qaeda as well as launching effective operations to take apart the terrorist infrastructure and militant strongholds throughout the country. Paradoxically, the Pakistani military stands accused of actually supporting and assisting these very same extremist centrifugal forces. This was highlighted by the publication in June 2010, of a report by the London School of Economics (LSE) which was authored by Matt Waldman. The LSE report claimed that ‘Pakistan appears to be playing a double game of astonishing magnitude’ in Afghanistan. [75] In addition, the WikiLeaks documents, 90,000 pages of mostly raw intelligence illustrated a continued relationship between the ISI and the Taliban. [76] This is not surprising.

119. The common thread between the LSE report and the WikiLeaks documents is the fact that Taliban factions, such as the Quetta Shura led by Mullah Omar, and the Haqqani Network which is controlled by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani, continue to operate unhindered from safe havens within Pakistani territory and use these sanctuaries as a launch pad for deadly cross-border attacks on US, British, Afghan and ISAF troops in Afghanistan.

120. Cameron’s comments can therefore be taken into context with the fact that, as of 11 October 2010, 340 British servicemen have died in Afghanistan since operations began in October 2001 which is a higher death toll than what the UK endured during the Falklands War in 1982. [77] Many more have suffered terrible life-changing injuries. The majority of deaths have been from the Taliban that launch their attacks whilst crossing over from safe havens in Pakistan and then slip back in afterwards.

121. Western Governments have known for some time that the Pakistani military did not break its ties with all the different Taliban factions as General Pervez Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, had promised to do. Musharraf, the country's military dictator, not only did nothing to sever those deep links with certain favoured Taliban or other extremist groups but on the contrary, he proceeded to weaken the judiciary, suspend the constitution, arrest elected politicians, muzzle the independent media, and misuse the billions of dollars of aid the West provided. [78] Although, under western pressure, Pakistan returned to being a democracy in 2008, the shadow of the military continues to linger and has an overbearing and suffocating influence on Pakistan’s defence and foreign policy agendas. In virtually all parts of the world, nations have a military, but in the case of Pakistan, the military has a nation. Therein lies the problem.

122. As Pakistani officials are keen to point out, since 2001 more than 2,700 members of the armed forces have been killed and many more severely wounded in fighting the Pakistani Taliban. These figures exceed the total casualties suffered by ISAF troops in Afghanistan over the same period. Yet, the key part of the story that is missing is that although the Pakistani military has been battling the Pakistani Taliban, which is an indigenous movement, it has not attempted to dismantle the Afghan Taliban factions which are carrying out attacks in Afghanistan. According to Lt Gen Talat Masood, a retired Pakistan army officer and now influential policy analyst, ‘There's a difference of policy, not a double game’. [79] However, this ‘difference of policy’ is completely at odds with British, European and American interests.

123. However, Chris Alexander, the former Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan states that the chief of Pakistan's army staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, ‘once again successfully deflected U.S. pressure to launch military operations in Baluchistan and North Waziristan, where the Islamic Emirate [Afghan Taliban] is based’. Worryingly, at odds with the west, Kayani remains rooted to the old military policy of utilizing Afghanistan for the purposes of ‘strategic depth’. The Pakistani military has never accepted the Afghan Taliban as a liability but instead views them as a potential asset. [80]

124. In addition to the challenge of the Taliban, the problem of al-Qaeda Central and its affiliates like the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba inside Pakistan remains a sore point between London and Islamabad. Between 2004 to 2006, al-Qaeda had planned a series of co-ordinated mass casualty attacks on British soil. These included the Ammonium Nitrate Plot and the Airline Liquid Bomb Plot both of which were disrupted by British intelligence and law enforcement agencies. However, the 7 July 2005 Transit System suicide bombings in London were successfully executed which resulted in the death of 52 people and over 700 injured. In all these plots, British citizens most of whom were of Pakistani origin had been recruited by al-Qaeda. Some were made to travel to Pakistan for operational training and ideological guidance. It is becoming increasingly complex for British authorities to observe people travelling between Britain and Pakistan and it is a significant challenge with nearly 400,000 yearly visits by British citizens of Pakistani origin with an average length of 41 days. In addition, it has become more difficult to determine which, if any, of those travellers are potential radicals following the dangerous route for indoctrination and training and the majority who are going there to legitimately visit family. [81] What remains clear is that Pakistan serves as a gateway and finishing school for many British terrorists.

125. Therefore, intelligence co-operation between the UK and Pakistan is essential. However, that ‘co-operation’ has at times been extremely problematic. In the case of the Ammonium Nitrate Plot, which involved individuals planning to use half a ton of the substance for bomb attacks on a wide array of targets in southern England, the ringleader Omar Khyam provided a detailed timeline of how he had initially been recruited by the ISI to fight in the insurgency in Indian Administered Kashmir. He would later be co-opted by al-Qaeda. When the trial resumed the following week Khayam refused to provide any more testimony claiming that the ISI had threatened his family in Pakistan because of all his revelations. This became a worrying case involving the intimidation of individuals by a foreign intelligence agency in a terrorism trial in the UK and set a dangerous precedent. [82]

The Security Implications of the Pakistan Flood Waters

126. Pakistan's fragile democracy has been severely damaged by the Government's poor response to the worst floods in the country's modern history. The flood waters hit Sindh province particularly hard having travelled around 600 miles south and east along the course of the River Indus. [83] In a slow-motion disaster, the floodwaters had robbed ordinary Pakistanis of everything they owned. From the storm-lashed remote northern valleys of Swat to the overflowing Indus River in the south, as well as in-between.

127. President Asif Zardari's trip to France and Britain as the floods raged created an image of an indifferent, arrogant leadership. The image of President Zardari visiting his chateau in France, while there was devastating flooding in Pakistan will have long-term effects. However, it is the prime minister, not the president, who is responsible for running the Government, including its response to natural disasters. General Ashfaq Kayani, by contrast, strategically visited victims days before the Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, who was campaigning for by-elections instead. Kayani repeatedly visited the affected areas thus bolstering his image with the people.

128. The World Bank estimates that crops worth $1bn (£640m) have been ruined by the flood waters. The Government may have to spend $1.7bn on reconstruction, and has said it will have to divert expenditure from badly needed development programmes. Farming constitutes one fifth of Pakistan's economic output, and 120 million people rely on agriculture both for food and jobs. [84]

129. The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and the 2005 Pakistan earthquake were massive disasters but the peak of the damage was established after a couple of days and therefore were finite and contained. The paradoxical problem with the 2010 flood waters in Pakistan is that they lingered for several weeks and moved so slowly that it caught everyone so off-guard. The media undoubtedly plays a role. Television in particular is crucial when it comes to capturing the public imagination. While in Britain the floods have got a fair amount of attention, in the US there has been little coverage, either in print or on TV. And low-key coverage results in a low-key response simply because people don't know what's going on. [85]

130. The agricultural heartland has been wiped out, which will cause spiralling food prices and shortages. Many roads and irrigation canals have been destroyed, along with electricity supply infrastructure. With the Government overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, Islamic groups, including extremist organisations such as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the ‘charitable’ front for the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), have stepped into the gap. Locals complain that government help is almost entirely absent. [86] On 10 December 2008, the United Nations Security Council declared that Jamaat-ud-Dawa was a terrorist organisation directly tied to the LeT. Additionally four individuals were designated as terrorists. They included its spiritual leader Hafiz Sayeed. [87] Yet in Pakistan the group remains active and Sayeed a free person.

131. At a makeshift relief centre organised by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the north-western province, volunteers piled donations of food, cooking oil and clothing near a tent they had erected on a street in central Peshawar. The tent, draped with large banners on which the name of Jamaat-ud-Dawa featured prominently. There was also a donation box. Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s weekly newspaper Jarrar or Courageous was being distributed. Its front page carried reports and photographs of the flooding alongside provocative headlines including one which declared that the conflict in Kashmir would only be solved ‘with the gun’. Although the Jamaat-ud-Dawa is filling the vacuum of the inability of governmental and western aid agencies to get to the areas most affected, the concern is that their ideology and influence will also take hold. [88]

132. Another Islamist group the Falah-e-Insaniat which translates into ‘Humanitarian Welfare’, also a group affiliated to the LeT, was active in setting up feeding centres for the homeless, as well as running medical posts and whose staff were busily handing out cash to flood victims, Rs3,000-5,000 (£22 - £36) per family. This far outstrips anything the Government of Pakistan has so far done. [89] Western aid is often channelled through Islamabad and the process is often mired in a maze of bureaucracy and corruption.

133. The floods, triggered by torrential monsoon downpours, engulfed Pakistan's Indus river basin. Villages have been wiped away but the impact of the disaster is being felt throughout Pakistan's population of 170 million. Fears that Zardari could be overthrown, possibly through an intervention by the army, had grown during the peak of the crisis leading Najam Sethi, editor of the weekly Friday Times, to say, ‘The powers that be, that is the military and bureaucratic establishment, are mulling the formation of a national government, with or without the PPP [the ruling Pakistan People's party]. I know this is definitely being discussed. There is a perception in the army that you need good governance to get out of the economic crisis and there is no good governance’. [90] For the time being, however, there does not appear to be any effort by the military to use the humanitarian crisis as an excuse to seize power. For the time being.

134. The unfolding political story of Pakistan including its role in battling terrorism and the unfolding humanitarian disaster are inextricably linked. Western generosity at this time of crisis could still help prevent these Islamist groups from gaining any more foothold under the cover of aid to the victims. The more the West gives directly to the areas affected the most and not through local proxies, the less likely it is that flood victims will be driven by sheer desperation into the arms of extremists and radicals. The scale of this catastrophe is unprecedented. But this is not just about humanitarian aid. Looking after the people of Pakistan now is in everyone's strategic interest especially the UK. It is also of vital importance for Britain to support and enhance Pakistan’s democratic Government which remains under siege from the military.

135. What is also creating nightmarish scenarios is the concern over the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear and military instillations. In the post 2008 Mumbai siege attacks atmosphere, there is a small but real possibility that the next India-Pakistan crisis could escalate to nuclear levels. The other aspect is that Pakistan may decide, as a matter of state policy, to extend its nuclear umbrella or once again engage in nuclear proliferation with one or more Middle East states, especially if Iran acquires a nuclear device. In addition, should Pakistan’s security and stability continue to unravel, its nuclear assets could be seized by remnant elements of the army or by extremist elements.

Talking to the Taliban: Myths and Dilemmas

136. As mentioned earlier, the stabilisation of Afghanistan is reliant on the nature of its relations with Pakistan. In turn, the aspect leads directly to the issue of the Taliban and what their future role in the region will be. The key questions 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 decentralised 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. As Edmund Burke said ‘The superior power may offer peace with honour and with safety. Such an offer from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity. But the concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear’ - Conciliation. (II. '75).

137. Afghanistan is one of those places in which people who wish to spell doom and gloom are likely to know the least of its history despite their confidence in making definitive statements. Examples include that the Afghans had risen up against all previous invaders and so any army would find itself immediately bogged down in guerrilla warfare, the people have such a hatred for foreigners that they would never co-operate with the occupying forces and Afghan Government, it’s an artificial country riven by ethnic conflict and doomed fragment like Yugoslavia. All of these maledictions are well off the mark. The fear that the situation in Afghanistan is unwinnable or that the Afghan Taliban is invincible are myths but myths that are often repeated which are damaging for public perceptions and morale.

138. ‘Afghanistan is the graveyard of Empires’. The irony behind that statement is that for most of its history Afghanistan has actually been the cradle of empires, not their grave. One of those repeated myths is that Afghanistan is inherently unconquerable thanks to the fierceness of its inhabitants and the formidable nature of its terrain. But this isn't at all borne out by the history. Until 1840 Afghanistan was better known as a 'highway of conquest' rather than the 'graveyard of empires'. For 2,500 years it was always part of somebody's empire, beginning with the Persian Empire in the fifth century B.C.

139. After the Persians it was Alexander the Great's turn. Some contend that Alexander met his match there, since it was an Afghan archer who wounded him in the heel, ushering a series of misfortunes that would end with the great conqueror's death. Yet coins traced to his reign keep being discovered in Afghan soil today. In fact, Alexander's successors managed to keep the region under their control for another 200 years.

140. Genghis Khan also had no trouble at all conquering the place, and the descendants of his army, the Hazaras, would build wide-ranging kingdoms using Afghanistan as a base. Tamerlane ultimately shifted the capital of his empire from provincial Samarkand to cosmopolitan Herat. Babur, who is buried in Kabul, used Afghanistan to launch his conquest of a sizable chunk of India and establish centuries of Muslim rule. Afghans were content with this. In 1504, Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire in India, easily took the throne in Kabul. In 1842, the British lost a bloody war that ended when fierce tribesmen notoriously destroyed an army of thousands retreating from Kabul.

141. Subsequently the British instigated a punitive invasion and ultimately won the second Anglo-Afghan war (1878-1880). Although they didn't prevent Tzarist Russia from encroaching on Central Asia, they succeeded in occupying much of the country and forcing its rulers to accept a treaty giving the British a veto over future Afghan foreign policy. London, it should be noted, never intended to make Afghanistan part of its empire.

142. Around 1984, the Soviets were finally getting the better of the mujaheddin with the aid of helicopter gun-ships. It was the West’s considerable financial assistance as well as military hardware and in particular the US decision to send anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, which ended the Soviets’ total air superiority that allowed the mujaheddin to stage a comeback. The West defeated the Soviet Union not the Afghan-Arab Mujaheddin. In addition, many Soviet soldiers became opium addicts as well as suffering from dysentery.

143. The war against the Soviets was sharply different from previous rebellions in Afghanistan's history as a state, which were relatively fleeting and almost always local affairs, usually revolving around dynastic power struggles. From 1929 to 1978 the country was completely at peace. Unfortunately, popular views of the place today are shaped by perception and hearsay rather than substantive knowledge of the country's history. In any case, today’s American-led intervention in Afghanistan can hardly be compared to the Soviet occupation. The Soviet Army employed a scorched-earth policy, killing more than a million Afghans, forcing some five million more to flee the country, and sowing land mines everywhere. Even the most generous estimates of today’s Taliban insurgency suggest it is no more than 20,000 men. About 10 times as many Afghans fought against the Soviet occupation. [91]

144. The way in which the current Taliban insurgency is becoming criminalised also presents opportunities. The rising tide of violence and daily misery has made the Taliban deeply unpopular in the south and south-west, and nationwide polls indicate that they and other extremist groups have little support. Additionally, there are indications that anti-state actors at all levels of the insurgency compete for drug spoils. Military intelligence units within NATO should try to capitalise on these inner rivalries to weaken the insurgency, yet remain aware of the risk that fighting between rival commanders could cause collateral damage in the local community. In a 2010 new poll conducted by ABC, ARD and the BBC, it revealed that 69% of Afghans named the Taliban as the greatest threat to their nation. Only 4% said it was the United States. [92]

145. It is impossible and a fallacy to have a genuine and meaningful dialogue with the Taliban in the hope that they will somehow be willing to enter into a power-sharing arrangement, respect the rights of women, and ethnic and religious minorities, to halt and dismantle the infrastructure that enables opium poppy cultivation and prevent al-Qaeda and affiliates from re-establishing their safe havens inside Afghanistan. For the Taliban themselves these are issues that they will not compromise on whatsoever. Even if they agree to any of these terms in principle, they have an established track record of reneging and violating any agreement.

146. It is important to point out that the international community had been talking to the Taliban even before September 11, to try and prevent them from blowing up the Bamyan Buddhist statues. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban were asked to hand over Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in order to avoid an invasion of Afghanistan. In both instances, the Taliban exhibited their rigidness and obstinacy and nothing was achieved.

147. The Taliban cannot be compared with the IRA, ETA or even the Tamil Tigers. All these terrorist groups have had or continue to have a political wing which would take part in the democratic process by standing in elections. They also were willing to compromise at some level for greater political representation and power sharing. In addition, all these groups had women in their organisation which played an important role within their infrastructure. The Taliban is opposed to power sharing, elections, compromise, and any substantive role for women.

148. The Taliban do not, in general, approve of jirgas as a means to settle disputes. The Taliban regard the tribal elder shura system as un-Islamic as strict Quranic huddud punishments are hardly ever applied. Indeed some say that the customary jirga system acted as a restraint on the wilder excesses of fundamentalist Islamic law. [93] In Taliban-controlled areas, the Taliban either co-opt and work with the tribal elder shuras or constantly threaten and intimidate them, reiterating that a weak district government provides a vacuum in rule of law that the Taliban is filling.

149. For some time now, Karzai has been persuaded to talk to the Taliban with a view to ensure a negotiated settlement which can allow western forces to leave in good order and bring peace to the region. If that is the case, then Karzai has to be allowed to choose which factions of the Taliban he wishes to negotiate with. There cannot be any interference or pressure from the west, Pakistan or any other country on which Taliban elements can be brought into a reconciliation process. The Afghans are the only ones that know which Taliban groups can be reconciled and those that carry ulterior motives and agendas.

150. The divide inside the country has widened among the Pashtuns and also between the non-Pashtun north and the Pashtun south. The minority Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras are vehemently against any deal with the Taliban. Even more complex are the demands of Afghanistan's neighbours who all want to make sure that their proxies dominate the next government in Kabul. [94]

151. The Pakistan army wants to see a settlement that brings the Taliban back to Kabul in a power-sharing deal. In other words take Afghanistan back to the pre 9/11 position. Karzai has carried out secret negotiations with the army's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which first wants him to reconcile with the neo-Taliban groups led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani - the very groups the US wants kept out. Karzai even sacked his own intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, who was opposed to concessions to the ISI. Yet ironically Karzai has got nothing in return. He is deeply frustrated with the ISI's refusal to extradite to Kabul senior Taliban leaders it is holding.

152. Despite claims by some, there is no such thing as ‘moderate Taliban’ or ‘extremist Taliban’. Moderate Taliban is somebody who will kill you with a knife or a pistol and not with an RPG or by blowing himself up. What we have is the ideological Taliban and those who join the Taliban for strategic or monetary purposes. It may be possible to clinically extract some of the financially motivated members of the Taliban by offering them employment, training and economic opportunities. It is not possible to talk to the ideological Taliban who pose the greatest danger. Their view and their mediaeval agenda are totally different to what the overwhelming majority of Afghans want for their country. The Taliban doctrine also goes against everything the West has been trying to achieve in Afghanistan. It is impossible to discuss anything positively with the ideological Taliban, other than to hand them back Afghanistan and admit that the Afghanistan project has failed.

153. It is inevitable that there will be some form of a political solution but it must be accompanied with the policy of tough military pressure to convince insurgents that they cannot win, coupled with offering the foot soldiers an economic way out. In spite of whatever incentives may be offered, the Afghan Government and ISAF cannot assume that all Taliban members will want to participate in reconciliation programmes. For example, the prison in Lashkar Gah has established a reconciliation programme. In many cases arrested Taliban members in Helmand who joined the Taliban to be a part of their campaign against the international forces and the Afghan Government, affirmed that they would remain part of the Taliban until told otherwise. These individuals have no desire to reconcile! [95] No matter what efforts are extended by the Afghan Government or ISAF, a significant amount of Taliban members will never disavow the cause, and reaching out to and reintegrating leaders will be an important step in reconciling all those who follow such leaders.

154. In addition, the Taliban believe that they are in the ascendency. They feel they have the strategic advantage, durability and resources to outlast the West in Afghanistan. Therefore it is too simplistic and naïve to somehow assume that they would have any meaningful desire to compromise with Karzai. An artificial deadline for troop withdrawal, which is not conditioned based, dramatically undercuts the US and UK by signalling uncertainty to its partners and enemies alike. Zabiullah Mujahedd, a Taliban spokesman told the BBC:

We do not want to talk to anyone - not to [Afghanistan President Hamid] Karzai, nor to any foreigners - till the foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan…We are certain that we are winning. Why should we talk if we have the upper hand, and the foreign troops are considering withdrawal, and there are differences in the ranks of our enemies? [96]

155. To increase community awareness and acceptance of reconciliation, Afghan officials could embark upon a public information campaign using themes specific to Helmand and from Islam and Pashtunwali. For example, terms like integration are not used by Afghans; rather, Afghans speak about being allowed to participate in Government. Additionally, messages that touch upon Pashtunwali concepts, such as nanawati or forgiveness, as well as peace and justice themes prevalent in Islam could help promote reintegration and reconciliation in Helmand. Appealing to a sense among many Pashtuns that their participation is necessary to rebuild their country would provide a positive way to re-engage disaffected portions who feel marginalised by the Government.

156. British foreign policy will need to assess what are the chances of being able to divide and fracture the various Taliban factions. Can there be a settlement with the movement as a whole, involving the exclusion of al-Qaeda and its affiliates? Failing that, when the West withdraws its troops, will the Afghan National Army be able to beat them back from the main towns, or will the Taliban sweep to power in the Pashtun areas, or even the whole country?

157. The most likely scenario may well resemble the past Soviet withdrawal. The West will build up the Afghan army to the point where it thinks it has a reasonable chance of surviving on its own, albeit with continued US support, including both air power and money to buy off local Taliban commanders. The army will then either hold the Pashtun cities against the Taliban in a series of bloody sieges or lose to them and retreat to Kabul and the non-Pashtun areas. Whatever is going on behind closed doors, the bloody preliminaries of an Afghan peace settlement are being played out at gunpoint along Afghanistan's lawless border with Pakistan. A manufactured exit strategy, capitulation through negotiation, will simply leave the problem for future generations to grapple with.

Concluding Remarks

158. The security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated in the last five years, and it will take time to reverse the Taliban gains. The first step is to weaken the perception that Taliban victory is inevitable. One of the biggest impediments to weakening that perception is the July 2011 date to commence withdrawal. This premature date has provided a psychological boost to the Taliban by signalling a lack of long-term western commitment to the mission. Furthermore, the West requires sincere co-operation from Pakistan in closing down the Taliban’s sanctuary on its territory. Unless Pakistan has confidence in NATO’s commitment to winning in Afghanistan, it will continue to hedge on its support for the Afghan Taliban and tolerate terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda.

159. There is still a chance for the international community to bring durable, lasting peace to Afghanistan but it is guaranteed to take a long time. It is critical that all actors agree to reassess their individual and collective roles and strategies. The Taliban are running a highly competitive propaganda campaign and it is in the interest of all international donors to develop ways of communicating their goals and plans to the local Afghan population. If ‘Enduring Freedom’ is to be achieved, we must abandon our conventional approaches to conflict resolution, think more dynamically and consider the real objective: bringing real and lasting peace to the Afghan people.

160. Afghanistan's woes began with outside interference and though the Taliban was dislodged from power in 2001, they were never defeated or dismantled. They simply moved their headquarters across the border into Pakistan and have in fact proliferated, and this is being fuelled by those who wish to see pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda elements re-asserting themselves. The key point to understand is that the Taliban is not a political movement or even a militia. They are a terrorist group adopting the tactics and strategies of the insurgency in Iraq, killing with stealth and unflinching in their agenda, whilst using the trafficking of narcotics to partly fund their activities.

161. Afghanistan’s vast opium/heroin industry finances the Taliban and feeds rampant government corruption. British authorities should make public the names of the top Afghan drug lords, including government officials, so that they can no longer act with impunity. And because Afghanistan’s court system is still incapable of handling major drug cases, Kabul should sign a treaty with Washington that would allow key heroin traffickers to be tried in the United States.

162. Short-term measures regarding counter-terrorism and military co-operation should not get in the way of long-term imperatives to stabilise Pakistan. There is an essential need to devote as much attention to shoring up Pakistan’s damaged democratic institutions and helping Pakistanis resolve their permanent domestic political crisis. Only this can ensure that the Pakistani military cannot interfere with the political system.

163. Britain needs to make its support for Pakistan more effective. In the past, there has been a failure of connecting aid, loans, and grants to specific policy goals. Linking economic and military aid to performance on those areas we judge to be most important. In addition, the aid process must be far more transparent.

164. 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 naïvely 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 leaves, or loses, the results will be even worse.

165. The Taliban are showing no signs of weakness but on the contrary are increasing their resources and infrastructure, expanding their reach into Afghanistan and successfully implementing the fear factor into Afghanistan with deadly effect. Success in defeating them militarily anytime soon appears remote, and the strategy will always remain hampered and flawed as long as the porous and badly manned border, the Durand Line, into Pakistan remains open.

166. 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, and often with the tacit support of military intelligence elements. Therefore, the remedy for the security dilemma must and can only lie primarily within Pakistan itself. It is therefore imperative for the UK to support and help to enhance the democratic and civil society institutions in Pakistan that the military has spent in weakening.

167. Throughout Pakistan's history, a weak and polarised political system has enabled the military to seize and maintain power. Therefore, a robust democratic culture will require the two main political parties, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), to renounce the vendettas that characterised their rivalry during the flawed democratic transition of the 1990s. Strong internal and external political pressures will be necessary to redress the democratic deficit because the army will not voluntarily empower civilian institutions.

168. Whilst the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan remains in place, it will continue to act as a recruiting ground for young British and other European citizens that are being drawn and attracted by the ideology and doctrines that al-Qaeda and its affiliate preach. Pakistan needs to recognise the terror groups for what they are. Dangerous institutions which they have become, whose resources and reach have continued to grow over the years and which now are threatening to destabilise and bleed not just Pakistan but the entire region and beyond.

169. 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.

170. 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. 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.

13 October 2010