Fine time to take out Wali-ur-Rahman

Taliban will now react with force

As if the TTP situation wasn’t already pretty confusing. Chances of meaningful negotiations with the Taliban were slim even before Wali-ur-Rahman’s assassination made Hakimullah Mehsud withdraw the offer of talks. Both Nawaz Sharif and Hakimullah have indicated willingness to talk – repeatedly – yet neither really holds all the cards on his side. All things considered, the government is still willing to sue for peace, with hints that even the military top brass might be on board, albeit reluctantly.

But what of the 40-odd thousand killed in the TTP’s terror campaign of around a full decade? Too many are still unwilling to simply bury the hatchet and move on without holding the TTP top command accountable. The memory of hundreds of video messages proudly claiming hits that killed thousands of innocent men, women and children, not to mention scores of beheadings of soldiers, won’t be simply washed away.

And the Shiites, especially in the Kurram Agency and Hazara, victims of senseless butchery of which the TTP was just the most potent launch-pad, will have very serious issues.

Similarly, Hakimullah, just like his predecessor Baitullah, has never had overriding control of the TTP. It is a conglomerate of dozens of militant outfits whose commanders have either been bought or bullied into joining the Mehsuds. The religious glue is not as central as it is thought, and propagated, by the foreign press. True, the tribal belt is overwhelmingly Sunni and predominantly Wahabi, but the Al Qaeda fingerprint is more indicative of its financing of the umbrella organization than the return-to-the-caliphate fanaticism it is made to portray.

Yet Al Qaeda retains influence enough to intimidate any currents that run contrary to its own thesis. That is why whenever Hakimullah has deviated from engaging with the Pakistani military and hinted at the possibility of negotiations, one or more of the less significant groups have been mobilized against FC check posts, or the unprotected Shiites. Again, as momentum for talks was building, there was the likelihood of Al Qaeda diehards employing similar tactics. But that, it seems, won’t e necessary any longer.

And speaking of the foreign press, its incompetence in misrepresenting Pakistan’s counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy is matched only by NATO’s inability to differentiate between the Taliban and Al Qaeda for almost all of the Afghan war. Count on the BBCs and CNNs of this world to keep drumming Pakistan’s insincerity to the wider war on terror, and of the ISI cajoling select Taliban groups, and the military’s refusal to engage the Haqqanis in North Waziristan. Yes, Pakistani intelligence has kept linkages with some groups – like the late Mulla Nazir’s in South Waziristan and captured Moulvi Faqir’s in Bajaur – but that was in keeping with classic COIN doctrine, pitting militant outfits against each other, draining their resources in infighting as opposed to open hostility with the state.

Not only did the strategy help expel foreign militants and keep the TTP advances in check, it also bolstered the military operation in FATA, and played a significant role in eventually pressuring the Mehsuds towards negotiations. And for all their reports about ‘Pakistani duplicity’, there’s hardly an explanation about the GHQ wanting to help the Taliban when the military itself has lost more than 5,000 men to the insurgency, not to mention embarrassing attacks on important installations including its headquarters. They also conveniently overlook that in finally trying to talk to the Taliban on the Afghan side, the Americans are employing a model very similar to Pakistan’s.

Then there is their take on the TTP itself. The Reuters’ reporters have found the late Wali-ur-Rahman an enigmatic figure since his 2009 TTP leadership differences with Hakimullah. For some reason they have continuously found signs of an imminent collapse of the hierarchy, with Wali about to take command, and of his supposedly accommodative nature implying less hits inside Pakistan and more focus on the Afghan insurgency.

Wali was more pragmatic than Hakumullah, but that was with regard to differences within the TTP’s decision-making circles, specifically appointments of regional commanders. He was no less convinced of expanding the Pakistani theatre of Al Qaeda’s insurgency than Hakimullah, and soldiers have long talked of his brutal tactics in Waziristan. He would make everybody watch public beheadings, and punish scared residents who’d stay away.

In reality, the TTP’s sudden liking for talks owed to two factors. One, the success of the military operation and continued US drone strikes in the tribal area. It has been beaten in the mountains and much of Al Qaeda’s patronage structure has been downgraded. What the drones and military have not destroyed has shifted to the Arab theatre, mostly Syria. The TTP has been deprived of cash, forcing it to turn to kidnapping and extortion to fund the bulk of its activities.

And two, the growing strength of the Afghan insurgency ahead of the American drawdown. While the Mehsuds claim public loyalty to Mulla Omar’s Afghan Taliban, in reality they are the product of a split between the parent body and foreign Al Qaeda elements in Afghanistan. Omar forbade extending the fighting into Pakistan, but Al Qaeda harboured greater ambitions, and its funding of the TTP some years ago was symptomatic of the widening cleavage. Now, with the Afghan insurgency gaining momentum, and the Americans having telegraphed their exit, the TTP fears being squeezed between two hostile opponents just as its chief patrons are reducing their footprint in the area.

The government is willing to talk because military successes in FATA have made the militants adopt desperate tactics and occupy strategic locations near main cities from where they carry out high intensity hit and run attacks. These are signs of a dying insurgency, yet pushing them at this point risks increasing civilian casualties which, of course, Islamabad would rather do without.

The debate between pursuing the savage militancy to the death and compromising in favour of controlling bomb attacks in big cities will be all the rage for some time. But for now it seems there will be little choice because Wednesday morning’s fateful drone strike that killed Wali will certainly make the Taliban react with force. And the subsequent increase in attacks in the cities and against military targets will, without a doubt, invite the wrath of the army. Fine time to take out one of the insurgency’s most potent villains!

The writer is Middle East Correspondent, Pakistan Today, and can be reached [email protected]