PAKISTAN: WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE TRIBAL BELT
Summary
Taliban forces in Pakistan's tribal areas recently seized then abandoned a security compound near the Afghan border. Such raids, though they are not highly significant on their own, allow the Pakistani Taliban to raise the profile of the overall jihadist insurgency in the country.
Analysis
Taliban forces in Pakistan's tribal belt Jan. 17 relinquished control of the Sora Ragha Post, a security compound which about 200 militants had seized a day earlier. The post is in the central part of South Waziristan agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), roughly 31 miles from the border with Afghanistan. There have been similar attacks on two other security outposts in the agency. Such attacks can give the jihadists opportunities to get their hands on weapons and ammunition, but far more importantly they are designed to demonstrate the militants' enhanced capability and to underscore the weakness of the state by undermining the confidence of the security forces.
Media reports give the impression that these events involve militants wresting control of territory from the Pakistani army, with troops abandoning their posts in the face of jihadist attacks. However, the ground reality of the facilities, the areas in which they are located and the geopolitical context suggest otherwise. For starters, the outposts in question do not belong to the army. These are outposts of the paramilitary force -- the Frontier Constabulary (not to be confused with the more robust but still paramilitary Frontier Corps).
The use of the term "fort" is also misleading in that it connotes a well-guarded facility when, in fact, these are British-era compounds that are not heavily barricaded and are located in desolate terrain. Those manning these posts are paramilitary personnel -- locals who are neither decently armed nor well trained, and certainly are not up to the task of counterinsurgency operations. As locals, many of them either do not want to be targets of retribution or do not like the idea of fighting their own people -- which would explain why on multiple occasions they have declined to fight.
Furthermore, the federal government never directly controlled these territories to begin with. The area has always been known for its lawlessness, but this characteristic gained prominence only after al Qaeda and the Taliban, fleeing the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, relocated in the area. The Pakistani army never directly operated in FATA until 2003-04. The old system of governance involved political administrator/agents who acted as liaisons between the government and the tribes -- making FATA an autonomous area of sorts. Thus, in many ways, the Pakistani army is trying to establish its control over the area for the first time.
At the same time, the Pakistani Taliban are replacing the old leadership composed of tribal maliks who were mostly affiliated with Pakistan's largest Islamist party, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam -- which itself is now the target of the Taliban. The Taliban have formed a new movement called Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan -- an umbrella group seeking to provide a centralized leadership to an otherwise decentralized Talibanization movement in the country.
It should also be noted that the army is not launching operations in FATA as it has in the district of Swat in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), because that is Pakistan proper. Director-General of Military Operations Maj. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha announced Jan. 16 that the army had managed to retake the 12 counties of the district from the militants, who have been pushed into the mountains further up north. The problems of Swat are not over by any means, and there are other districts in the NWFP, especially those bordering FATA, that are experiencing Talibanization. Thus it will be quite some time before the army will directly deal with the militants in FATA in any sustained manner.
While the outpost incidents on their own are not that significant, they do contribute to the overall insurgency, which continues to grow -- not just by increasing guerrilla-style activity in the Pashtun areas but by extending its tentacles into the rest of Pakistan through suicide attacks.
Copyright 2008 Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
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