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A very interesting commentary.Taliban are Pak Army proxies, not Pashtun nationalists - III
In the aftermath of 9/11, Pakistan was forced to fight the Taliban. Pakistani generals accommodated the immediate US concerns about Al Qaeda but also continued a low profile relationship with the Afghan Taliban to preserve them for strategic depth in Afghanistan after the US had left the country. They managed to play the double role by creating a 'managed chaos' in FATA that made the region too insure for independent observation from the outside and too frightening for the local tribal people to share information with the outside world. It was systematically propagated in Pakistani media that 'fiercely autonomous' tribes in the 'weakly governed' FATA have given refuge in line with the code of Pashtunwali to the fleeing militants from Afghanistan in defiance of the Pakistani state. All this is utter nonsense.
Not even a single tribe in FATA gave refugee to any militants. People who cooperated with the militants were individuals within tribes. These individuals have longstanding links with the military establishments and their tribes have no control over them. For example, Maulana Noor Muhammad from South Waziristan was openly urging the tribes in his Friday sermons to support the militants following their escape in the area.
South Waziristan was the first FATA agency where the 'managed chaos' was imposed to construct a fake popular support for the militants. While most people watched the activities of the militants as unconcerned bystanders, it were the local Waziri Pashtun nationalists and other sensible local tribal people who foresaw the danger in such activities and began to educate people about them. At this point mysterious targeted killing of such anti-Taliban people began in 2003. The first anti-Taliban tribesman who was target killed in 2003 was Farooq Wazir, the local leader of the Pashtun nationalist Pashtunkhwa Mili Awami Party, PMAP, who had publicly declared in response to Maulana Noor Muhammad's sermons that no militants will be allowed to enter the city centre of Wana, capital of South Waziristan.
Between 2003 to 2007, over 200 political activists, including tribal leaders in South Waziristan were target killed under mysterious circumstances never investigated by the government of Pakistan. The common denominator among them is that they all were anti-Taliban. Their families hold the ISI responsible for their killing. Many of the eliminated anti-Taliban people were local activist of Pashtun nationalist political parties, PMAP and ANP. Mahmud Achakzai, leader of PMAP, repeatedly visited Waziristan to attend the funeral ceremonies of his assassinated party workers.
When the 'managed chaos' had to be shifted to the Mehsud area of South Waziristan, the intelligence authorities could not even find a suitable local Mehsud to 'crown' as Taliban commander. Thus a non-local Mehsud, Baitullah Mehsud, was chosen for the purpose on the recommendation of Maulana Mirajudin, an establishment linked Mehsud cleric. Although originally from South Waziristan, Baituallah's family had settled in Bannu for a long time. At the time of his arrival in South Waziristan as a Taliban commander, Baitullah could not even speak Pashto in the typical Mehsud dialect. He used to speak Banuchi - the Bannu Pashto dialect. Later during his stay in Waziristan as a terror leader he learned the Mehsud dialect.
Taliban apologists, such as PTI leader Imran Khan, have been claiming that Taliban militancy in Waziristan is inspired by Faqir of Ipi, the Waziri tribesman who led Waziristan's armed resistance to the British. This is a misleading claim. The Faqir's struggle was basically nationalist despite his religious orientation. This is the reason that descendents of the Faqir's family have disassociated themselves from the Taliban militancy, implying that Taliban have no ideological connections with the Faqir. Moreover, descendents of the close associates of the Faqir, all of them Pashtun nationalists linked with PMAP and ANP, have been target killed for their public anti-Taliban stance. One of them, Mirza Alam had been approached by the military authorities in Wana to give them one of his sons or nephews for leadership of the Waziri Taliban. He refused and later was killed along with six members of his family.
In North Waziristan, unlike South Waziristan, there was almost no local resistance to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This does not imply any popular tribal support for the militants. The brutal massacre of the anti-Taliban people in South Waziristan was being closely watched in the neighbouring North Waziristan. By the time the militants reached North Waziristan, people there had clear idea that resistance to Taliban/Al Qaeda was pointless since the state is behind them. That was further confirmed when they saw that Jalaludin Haqqani hosted all the militants. Thus the militants landed and continue to live there in peace amid the terrified local tribals whose free will is under siege.
A Pashtun from Afghanistan, Jalaludin Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani Network, is one of the veterans of ISI's proxies, who were recruited in 1974 and later trained by colonel Imam in Peshawar for Afghan 'jihad'. He was settled in Danday Darpa Khel, a village in the suburbs of Mir Ali, the second important town of North Waziristan. His extended family owns almost half of the real estate in Mir Ali. A signal phone call from his house or madrassa is enough to ensure postings and transfers in all government offices in North Waziristan. Also, the Haqqani family has houses in Rawalpindi and Peshawar.
The Haqqani network based in North Waziristan, a frequent target of the US drone strikes, is the most formidable Taliban group attacking the US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan. It is the Haqqani Taliban leaders that the military establishment of Pakistan wants to accommodate in the future government of Afghanistan as has been suggested by the establishment linked think tank, Jinnah Institute, in its report 'Pakistan, US and the Endgame in Afghanistan' (page 13). The same report warns of Pashtun backlash in FATA if the Taliban are not accommodated in power in Afghanistan. But there is no public support for Afghan Taliban in FATA that could translate in such a backlash. Although the ISI did try to create that support, it failed.
For example, the ISI tried to create a stature for the Haqqanis as respected tribal leaders in FATA. They were directed to make peace among the Shia and Sunni tribes in Kurram. The objective was to argue to the world that Haqqanis are respected tribal leaders who have managed to make peace among the Shia and Sunni tribals, something that even the government of Pakistan had not been able to achieve. Thus any action against the Haqqani Network, that the US is asking for, would enrage the 'fiercely autonomous' people of FATA.
The Shia and Sunni tribal leaders questioned the wak (authority) of the Haqqanis to negotiate Kurram disputes. The Haqqanis responded that they were directed by the ISI. They demanded full authority from the tribal leaders for a peace deal. The Shias flatly refused. The Sunnis gave them the authority that practically means no authority: they asked the Haqqanis to use their influence with the ISI to implement the Murree agreement negotiated between the Kurram Shias and Sunnis by the government of Pakistan in 2008 but never enforced.
In the past, Kurram has been accepting mediation from Waziristan. Khandan Mehsud, a respectable tribal elder from Waziristan target killed in the post 9/11 Waziristan due to his opposition to the Taliban, has been leading the negotiations. Why did tribes of Kurram welcome Khandan Mehsud but not the Haqqanis? This is because the Mehsud had the stature of a popular tribal leader in FATA that the Haqqanis simply do not have. The fact that Mehsud belonged to the Sunni sect never damaged the Shias' trust in him. In this context he was a Pashtun nationalist who sincerely worked for well being of the Pashtun regardless their religious affiliations. Contrary to this, the Shias see the Haqanis as their murderers and the Sunnis fear, not respect, them. This is not how popular nationalist leaders are looked upon by their people.
Opinion: Taliban are Pak Army proxies, not Pashtun nationalists - III by Farhat Taj
It is worth a read by all who are interested in understanding the situation in Pakistan.
