Is Pakistan falling to Taliban?

[LETHALFORCE]

I don't think pakistan falling into taliban hands is a wet dream for anybody, it would be a threat for the world and it is becoming more real everyday.

 

[Neo]

And how exactly do you think that will happen? Taliban's are in the cities but have almost no political support outside NWFP. Pakistan is home to 167 million people, 35 million live in Karachi and Lahore only. Taliban would have to take atleast these two cities to take over Pakistan. Not going to happen.

 

[ahmedsid]

I have always felt that the best person to Lead Pakistan would be Imran Khan, atleast for his Clean image. But one thing I feel he is jumping onto the Peace talks brigade, which I dont understand. Is he wrong doing so? I feel no talks with taliban should be carried out. The gun should be used Intelligently.

 

[Neo]

Imran Khan is not a leader, he doesn't even have a political agenda!
He got support of his cricket fan, rest of his fans support him for his anti Mush campaign.

Btw, he's a mullah!

 

[ahmedsid]

Yes, I have heard that the people in the Lahore etc are highly progressive and are modern to the core in their outlook.

One thing I will tell is that Fighting the Taliban is not like fighting any other enemy. They are fighting an asymmetrical warfare, a well developed offshoot of the best guerrilla warfare tech. The Pakistani Army will have to sweat it out a lot more to finish them off. The Pakistani army has been built along the notion that India is the enemy to fight, and they have been made to counter a massive Indian attack. They are standing baffled at the Taliban way of fighting I feel and Only time will tell how they will fare.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

I have always felt that the best person to Lead Pakistan would be Imran Khan, atleast for his Clean image. But one thing I feel he is jumping onto the Peace talks brigade, which I dont understand. Is he wrong doing so? I feel no talks with taliban should be carried out. The gun should be used Intelligently.

Imran Khan is a pashtun and he wants to protect his people?

 

[ahmedsid]

Imran Khan is not a leader, he doesn't even have a political agenda!
He got support of his cricket fan, rest of his fans support him for his anti Mush campaign.

Btw, he's a mullah!

Imran Khan a Mullah? Come on he can be at best a Peacenik, not a Mullah. He has too colorful a past to be accepted as a mullah!

Let me ask you Neo, Why the Peace deal? Why couldnt the Pakistani Army finish off the Taliban with atleast 1500 fighters killed etc which they were claiming. Why agree to a ceasefire when they were winning?

 

[LETHALFORCE]

And how exactly do you think that will happen? Taliban's are in the cities but have almost no political support outside NWFP. Pakistan is home to 167 million people, 35 million live in Karachi and Lahore only. Taliban would have to take atleast these two cities to take over Pakistan. Not going to happen.

this is being taken maybe too lightly but I remember people were asying nothing would happen to Quetta, and now that is almost on the verge of falling, your thinking is that taliban will be localized to NFWP but they have spread from afghanistan to SWAT,NWFP what's to prevent them from spreading further when they will find sympathizers along the way?

 

[Adux]

Yes, She is, Overtly becoming a mullah state, take the Iranian example. There is a good possibility such a system of governance and thinking to come up in Pakistan!

 

[Singh]

There are 2 things which we are missing in this debate.

1. Is Pakistan as a whole(territory and society) going to be radicalized ?
2. Will a good chunk of Pakistani territory and society be radicalized ?

And what are the implications of either.

Personally 1st option can be safely discarded. 2nd point is a reality. And how much of an influence will this significantly radicalised sections of Pakistan will yield is the moot point.

 

[ahmedsid]

Taliban is something not to be taken lightly, We cant say from where they will find supporters. Their recruiting plans must be monitored, I say the ISI should pull in some big game and counter the Taliban.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

There are 2 things which we are missing in this debate.

1. Is Pakistan as a whole(territory and society) going to be radicalized ?
2. Will a good chunk of Pakistani territory and society be radicalized ?

And what are the implications of either.

Personally 1st option can be safely discarded. 2nd point is a reality. And how much of an influence will this significantly radicalised sections of Pakistan will yield is the moot point.

for the second point the war on terror and USA involvement in Afghanistan has already started the radicalization of society or accelerated it.

 

[Rage]

This is something I cannot understand...

Taliban 'receives $6M for Swat ceasefire'

Islamabad has provided the Taliban with $6 million for agreeing to an open-ended ceasefire in the restive Swat valley, a new report says.

Taliban insurgents have agreed to lay down their arms and endorse a deal between the government and local leader Sufi Mohammad to impose 'Sharia law'.

A new report by Adnkronos International (AKI) suggests that the Taliban may have even received money in exchange for peace.

"The amount has been paid through a backchannel," AKI cited a well-placed security source as saying on condition of anonymity.

"It is compensation for those who were killed during military operations and for the properties destroyed by the security forces," the official explained. "In fact, negotiations for this package were finalized well before Maulana Sufi Mohammad signed a peace deal."

According to the source, the money was delivered from a special fund at the order of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.

A special aid package, including a contribution from the US, was reportedly designated for the tribal area by the president's office and distributed through the governor's office in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

A deal was signed last week between Taliban militants and Islamabad to end the insurgency in Swat valley in return for the imposition of Taliban-inspired laws.

The Taliban endorsed the deal after Sufi Mohammad, head of the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi, discussed details of the government proposal with Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah and demanded that the Taliban lay down its arms.

Meanwhile, a tribal council of Mujahadeen leaders based in Pakistan including Baitullah Mehsud, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Moulvi Nazeer and Gul Bahadur formed a coalition and vowed to stop assaults against Pakistani security forces.

Instead, united, they will turn their sights toward NATO forces in Afghanistan next month.


http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=86608&sectionid=351020401

 

[thakur_ritesh]

on the question of a potential of this movement spreading to other parts of pakistan is concerned then one has to reflect to lal masjid, the only difference, those people did not take to streets with their guns in their hands which cant be said for this grouping of people who are not as peace loving by a long stride, and all this happened in the capital of pakistan right under the then head of pak amed forces and the then dictator gen. mush. islamabad was terrorised then, and there is every likelyhood that a similar thing could be replicted in rest of pakistan including karachi and lahore so there no way i am for one going to undermine these people. in case of karachi this would the worse of all if it were to happen for there will be a big resistance from MQM and they for sure will not in any which way surrender their power to the talibs, the sparks are already there.

 

[Adux]

There are 2 things which we are missing in this debate.

1. Is Pakistan as a whole(territory and society) going to be radicalized ?
2. Will a good chunk of Pakistani territory and society be radicalized ?

And what are the implications of either.

Personally 1st option can be safely discarded. 2nd point is a reality. And how much of an influence will this significantly radicalised sections of Pakistan will yield is the moot point.

I dont understand the difference between both your questions, They are the same in the context of our exercise, a good chunk means the whole, as the minority will not be able to exercise power.
Anyways, what makes you think Pakistan isnt radicalized as a whole in comparison to global standards TODAY?

 

[Rage]

And in related news....

North and South Waziristan Taliban groups form alliance

February 21, 2009 12:02 AM

Two major Pakistani Taliban groups based in Waziristan that have feuded in the past have put aside differences and formed an alliance.

The North Waziristan faction, led by Hafiz Gul Bahadar, and the South Waziristan faction, led by Mullah Nazir, have agreed to put an end to a local feud with Baitullah Mehsud, the overall leader of the Pakistani Taliban. The three groups have joined forces to prevent outside enemies from dividing the Taliban, the BBC reported.

The three leaders met at an undisclosed location in the Waziristan region. The Taliban warlords agreed to form a 13-man shura, or council. Leadership of the shura would rotate and Baitullah, Nazir, and Bahadar will all sit on the council.

It is unclear if Nazir and Bahadar will join Baitullah Tehrik-e-Taliban, or the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. Baitullah's group, which operates in all of the tribal areas and throughout the Northwest Frontier Province, has defeated the Pakistani military in multiple battles, forcing the government to cut peace agreements.

The move to unite the Waziristan factions comes as the Taliban achieved its greatest victory yet by humiliating government forces in Swat and forcing the state to cede a vast region in the Northwest Frontier Province. Mullah Fazlullah, the second in command of the Tehrik-e-Taliban, has led the fighting in Swat.

The prior rivalry between Baitullah on one side and Nazir and Bahadar on the other led to small scale clashes between the groups. Last summer, Nazir and Bahadar formed an alliance to resist Baitullah's expansion in the tribal areas.

Aside from tribal rivalries and disputes over land, the two sides disagreed over the issue of fighting the Pakistani state. Baitullah aims to conquer territory by fighting the military, while Nazir and Bahadar want to focus efforts across the border in Afghanistan. This led some analysts to improperly label the two "pro-government Taliban."

The new alliance will strengthen the Taliban throughout the tribal areas. The differences prevented the groups from pooling their forces to battle Pakistani government forces during past engagements in the Waziristan region.

Baitullah, Nazir, and Bahadur all sponsor al Qaeda and other Pakistani jihadi groups. Their tribal areas are a safe haven for al Qaeda, which numerous camps and safe houses in the region. US Predator strikes have hit al Qaeda and Taliban compounds, safe houses, and camps in all three Taliban leader’s territory.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/02/north_and_south_wazi.php

 

[Rage]

In reference to the point raised by Neo about political support for the Taleban in major Pakistani cities like Lahore and Karachi, the following articles provide an inkling as to the level of support (perhaps not political, but certainly ground-based) and their already existing presence in Karachi.

This first is from late 2008 and concerns the genesis of an expanding presence of the Taliban in Karachi- conspicuous, troublingly, through billboards and banners, an influx of Pushtun immigrants that are beginning to form a substantial support base for the Taliban and a growing radicalization of a section of the city's population...


The ‘Talibanization’ of Pakistan’s biggest city

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 12:28 PM


KARACHI, Pakistan – In the back of a jeep driving through Karachi, a sign on the wall of the city’s famous "Village Restaurant" caught my eye. It was just a little piece of frayed white paper plastered next to the restaurant’s much bigger logo, tempting customers to "Experience the Exotic of Traditional Dining."

But the printed sign expressed an increasingly urgent plea in this teeming port city, once Pakistan’s capital: "Save your city from Talibanization," it said in English.

But could the Taliban really be taking over Karachi? Karachi is Pakistan’s biggest city, far from the lawless tribal hinterland along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Out there, Taliban and al-Qaida militants have carved out an independent state. In the mountains, militants have their own courts and even issue licenses to local business. Last week in the tribal area, the Taliban publicly executed a group accused of murders. In another village square, they flogged several butchers for allegedly selling the meat of sick animals. That is Taliban justice.

U.S. military and intelligence officials consider that border area to be the world’s biggest, most dangerous safe haven for Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and nearly all of their deputies have been based, and may still be based, in this often impassible mountain terrain.

But I was in Karachi, a giant city on the Indian Ocean. If Karachi is being ‘Talibanized,’ Pakistan is in real trouble, and so is everyone else.


Growing radicalism

Karachi has a history of Islamic radicalism. Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in front of the Village Restaurant in 2002. Pearl had been meeting contacts here. They were supposed to help him investigate Richard Reid, the "Shoe Bomber" who tried to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris in December 2001.

But Pearl’s meeting was a set up. The "contacts" turned out to be fanatic militants who kidnapped and beheaded him. I was about to discover the radicals’ presence in this city appears to have grown since then.

Traveling in Karachi is both overwhelming and exhausting. It is a colorful, chaotic and undeniably dirty city. Flocks of vultures circle the sky all day. Trash lines many of the streets. As we drove from the Village Restaurant, our jeep darted around swarms of motorcycles, pickup trucks, rickshaws and even a sad looking camel pulling a cart stacked with barrels.

An empty street in Karachi, Pakistan.​

We were headed to a neighborhood in west Karachi where I had been told al-Qaida and Taliban militants had established a safe haven. Many Pakistanis make little distinction between al-Qaida and the Taliban. Both want to destabilize Pakistan and Afghanistan, establish an even bigger base of operations and spread their aggressive, intolerant vision of Islamic law.

The majority of people in Karachi want no part of it. Karachi is Pakistan’s cultural capital, the center of the nation’s fashion, high-tech and media industries. But that Karachi is under siege.

After about 30 minutes in traffic, our jeep arrived at the office of a local contact in a slum in west Karachi. Fearing for his safety, he didn’t want to be identified. I’ll call him Malik. He would take us deep into the alleys on the outskirts of Karachi, a neighborhood filled with brick homes built around cliffs and marble quarries. It would be unwise, Malik said, to venture in alone.

"It is too dangerous," he said. "The Talibans have their checkpoints, bunkers and snipers. At night, they patrol, sometimes on horses. They are always coming out with their weapons and RPGs intimidating people."

Malik said radicals have been flooding into Karachi since this spring, moving in from the border region. The border region is now a warzone, under attack by the Pakistani military and, controversially here, by U.S. drones and Special Operations Forces (SOF) that carry out raids from bases in neighboring Afghanistan.

The Pakistani and U.S. military offensives have killed hundreds of militants, but scattered many more. Increasingly, they are settling in Karachi. Estimates of Karachi’s population range from 12 to 18 million. The lack of accountability makes the city a great place to hide, unless you look like I did as I descended from the jeep dressed in khakis and a blue shirt.

Malik and I were standing in front of one of west Karachi’s madrassas, a traditional Islamic school for boys.

"Are there any students inside," I asked a guard. He stared back at me blankly. In less than a minute there were about 15 people around us. Several appeared to be madrassa students who had come out to see what a foreigner could possibly want from them.

"Are you all students at the madrassa?" I asked. A few said they were.

‘God willing, we will fight them’
Many Pakistanis attend madrassas because they offer free education, supplementing the government’s lacking public school system. For centuries madrassas were the only form of education in the Islamic world. From Morocco to Indonesia, most madrassas have a similar layout, with a mosque at the center and classrooms upstairs. The vast majority of madrassas are moderate charities that teach religious values, the Koran and the traditions of the Prophet Mohammed.

But some madrassas in Pakistan have churned out suicide bombers indoctrinated in jihad and a paranoid but widespread philosophy that they must attack innocent civilians to defend their faith from the United States, Israel and other modern-day "crusaders."

Former President Pervez Musharraf promised to reform and regulate Pakistan’s hard-line madrassas. It never happened. According to Karachi’s former mayor Farooq Sattar, there are now more than 2,000 illegal madrassas in Karachi alone. This was one of them.

"What do you think of the Taliban and their influence here?" I asked the students.

More blank stares.

"What do you think about the U.S. incursions?"

That got a reaction.

"God willing, we will fight them," said one teenager with a purple scar on his chin. "They are the enemy," he said and launched into a long explanation of America’s goal to occupy Muslim lands and undermine Islam. I’ve heard the same speech from Cairo to Lebanon, Baghdad to Riyadh. God bless the Internet.

A few minutes later my driver/fixer, a very tough guy from a very tough part of Pakistan, tapped me on the shoulder.

"I think you have been here long enough," he said. It was time to go.

But I still hadn’t seen any Taliban.

Malik suggested we go deeper into the slum, to the neighborhood right under the cliffs and quarries. He was nervous about taking a foreigner, but had an idea. There was a graveyard in the area.

"We can pretend to be offering prayers for the dead," Malik suggested. "I’ll pray over one of the graves and you can see the neighborhood for yourself."

Malik said praying at a gravesite would give us an excuse to be in the area and raise less suspicion.

 

[Rage]

....<Article Continued>

‘You should not be here’

It didn’t exactly work. As soon as I stepped out of the jeep by the gravestones, I was again surrounded by a group of people. They didn’t have weapons or appear threatening, but didn’t attempt to hide their sympathies for the Taliban. One man proudly told me several suicide bombers had prayed in a nearby mosque.

But others were scared of the Taliban. A man who spoke English told me the Taliban were in control of the area.

"Do the Pakistani police or soldiers ever come here?" I asked him. "No, they can’t come here."

"How do people feel here?"

"We are all frightened. The Taliban has taken over."

More men, athletically built in their 20s and 30s, started to arrive.

"Who are these people?" I asked the English speaker.

"They are Taliban."

"Do they understand what we are saying? Do they understand English?"

"No, but you shouldn’t stay here. It is not comfortable here. You should not be here."

"Who runs this neighborhood?"

"They do."

The new arrivals didn’t want to be interviewed.

"Stop asking them questions," the English speaker advised.

We left a few minutes later.

"We couldn’t come here at night," Malik said as we were driving out of the neighborhood. "Now we had an excuse to come to the graveyard. But at night, there would be no reason to be here."


‘It’s sad’

Driving back to the hotel, I kept thinking how a neighborhood in Karachi could be so tense and apparently out of control. In less than two hours, and without any prior arrangements, we’d managed to get to an area full of Taliban supporters and where many locals were clearly terrified.

As I walked back to my hotel room, I passed an old man in the hallway.

"I didn’t know you people were still coming here," he said. By "you people" I assumed he meant foreigners.

"Yes, a few. Not many of us," I admitted.

"I didn’t think anyone would be coming anymore," he added, saying he was upset by the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, one of the centers of social life for Pakistan’s shrinking expatriate community.

"It’s sad," he said. "It’s sad it’s come to this."

"Yes, it’s sad," I agreed.


http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/30/1469342.aspx

 

[thakur_ritesh]

There are 2 things which we are missing in this debate.

1. Is Pakistan as a whole(territory and society) going to be radicalized ?
2. Will a good chunk of Pakistani territory and society be radicalized ?

And what are the implications of either.

Personally 1st option can be safely discarded. 2nd point is a reality. And how much of an influence will this significantly radicalised sections of Pakistan will yield is the moot point.

yup one has to agree the second option is very likely a possible reality in times to come. the impact will depend on who are the people who have been radicalised, if it stains the pakistan establishment (pa, and isi) and there are signs that they have decent support and sympathisers there, then this will fast catch up as pakistanis are generally fed that what the pak establishment thinks is the best for that country and it has been ingrained in the psyches of the average pakistani that it is only the pak establishment which is their savior and any thing they say/preach has to be true and needs to be followed as then that is important for their existence. we dont need to go too far to see the impact of the level of radicalisation of a section of pak society, i guess pdf is just a click away and i believe most there are decently educated and have not had madarrsa education, and those are considered the enlightened lot, so we can just assume how bad it could go.


the impact will see distancing from the “wild-wild” west and more association with mid-east, east (as in china) and adopting of the ultra orthodox islamic view points, teachings and life style. pakistan will end up being exactly what they were in the hands of the US for the most part of the 60 yrs of their independence the only difference this time being that they will be doing all the dirty jobs of china and not of US, which will need certain countries to carry out its dirty stuff. recently the chinese vice foreign minister met with a mullah of nwfp and the statement released was, china is friends with pakistan and not of any particular regime of pakistan, and this one act says a lot about how pakistan could take a turn in times to come. india will face the evil in its own territories once the 26/11 guard is down, and kashmir will most likely again become a hot bed of terrorism and a good shooting/target practice for our armed forces chaps. the schooling will change, the women will not have much freedom, democracy will be a thing of past, press reporting will see a sea change, in a few words a slightly refined form of what we saw in afghanistan.


mind you this is the worst case scenerio which i suspect would really happen as there is too much at stake for the civilised world to let pakistan go down the drain, it aint quite happening i suspect and anyways as always i would like to remain an optimist!

 

[Vinod2070]

There are 2 things which we are missing in this debate.

1. Is Pakistan as a whole(territory and society) going to be radicalized ?
2. Will a good chunk of Pakistani territory and society be radicalized ?

And what are the implications of either.

Personally 1st option can be safely discarded. 2nd point is a reality. And how much of an influence will this significantly radicalised sections of Pakistan will yield is the moot point.

I think the 1st option can't be totally discarded. Though one would hope so, the appeal of Taliban and it's potential for taking over the whole of Pakistan (with the nukes) is certainly in the realm of possibility. There is a strong vocal support for them and the opponents are too powerless to stop the advance.

Its mainly for the PA to stop the advance. Let's see which way they chose to go.