Pakistani army offensive in North Waziristan has disrupted many militant groups in the tribal region but the operation’s success would be to prevent reconstitution and attacks of militant outfits, such as the Haqqani network.
United States administration officials have reportedly said that proof of the operation’s success would be whether it allows militants to reconstitute themselves in North Waziristan or elsewhere and again plot attacks against US-led forces in neighbouring Afghanistan or elsewhere.
According to a foreign news report, US officials said that previous Pakistani offensives in the tribal belt have either ignored groups like the Haqqanis because they did not carry out attacks in Pakistan, or allowed them to return. According to reports, US military officials believe that top levels of Pakistan’s security establishment back the Haqqanis as a proxy force to maintain influence in Afghanistan.
As US forces withdraw from Afghanistan at the end of the year, the US military’s ability to battle the Haqqani network is expected to diminish. Obama administration officials have pressed Pakistan’s military leaders in a series of meetings this month to ensure the group does not escape the current operation.
“We keep telling them they must go after all the terrorists and that they cannot cherry-pick,” said a senior US official, requesting anonymity.
According to reports, Pakistan insists that no insurgent groups will be spared.
But some officials have reportedly said that insurgents fled the area before the start of the offensive.
US officials have not received photographs or other visual evidence from Pakistan showing it has directly targeted the Haqqani network. A senior US official reportedly said, “We have to be convinced there is no reconstituting of terrorist facilities and havens.”
Some analysts believe that Pakistan is taking action now because of a provision in the 2015 Pentagon budget that could withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in counter-terrorism funding unless US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel certifies that Pakistan has significantly disrupted the Haqqani network.”
Pakistani officials declined to comment specifically on the Haqqani network.
US military leaders have long believed that Pakistan did not target the Haqqani network before because it does not carry out attacks in Pakistan. Afghan authorities also accuse Pakistan of sparing the Haqqani network in the current offensive, arguing that no senior commander in the group has been reported killed.
Last week, an Afghan National Directorate of Security spokesman alleged that Pakistan’s security establishment had shifted Haqqani fighters to safe places before the operation began.
At a news conference the next day, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry said Afghanistan should take action against militants fleeing over the border from Pakistan.
“It is … our expectation that action would be taken on the Afghan side to check the fleeing terrorists and not to allow Afghan territory to be used by anti-Pakistan elements,” Chaudhry said.
Tribal leaders reportedly said that Haqqanis and other groups fled North Waziristan in the days before the operation began. With less than one-third of the tribal region reportedly under government control, many fighters are believed to have taken refuge in other areas of North Waziristan, including Datta Khel, the site of recent US drone strikes, and in the thickly forested Shawal valley.
Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai reportedly said that the operation has displaced the Haqqani network but the insurgents would eventually be able to regroup and plot attacks in Afghanistan from elsewhere in the area.
“It would take some time for them to establish their training and communication facilities at some other place,” he said, but added that targeting Afghan border provinces such as Khost and Paktika soon “would not be a problem for them.”
