ISLAMABAD | Pakistani forces are preparing to launch a long-awaited military offensive in remote North Waziristan against al Qaeda and Taliban militants, but several key changes in the region could affect the nature and outcome of the operation.
Pakistan’s government and military have not disclosed a time frame, stating only that the offensive will be carried out in line with national interests.
But delays in launching the offensive have triggered important developments in North Waziristan, notably efforts by the main local Pakistani Taliban commander, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, to blunt the offensive by calling for nonviolence and avoiding any challenges to security forces. Militants linked to Mr. Bahadur are viewed as pro-government.
Pakistani authorities signed a peace agreement with Mr. Bahadur in September 2006 in which both sides pledged not to attack, but militants were left free to maintain local control.
Late last month, White House National Security Adviser James L. Jones and CIA Director Leon E. Panetta visited Pakistan amid signs that Pakistan had agreed to launch military operations inside North Waziristan.
In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer confirmed that the U.S. has been pressing Islamabad to step up military action.
“In the wake of the failed Times Square terrorist attack and its direct links to extremist groups based in Pakistan, we have delivered a clear message to Pakistani authorities of the need to step up our counterterrorism cooperation to prevent an attack on the homeland and to address a common terrorist threat,” he said.
Shortly after the visit, however, a Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman denied that any decision had been made about the offensive.
“Pakistan is conducting operations according to its own plans,” the spokesman said. “As far as North Waziristan is concerned, that will be our sovereign decision as to when and how to proceed. No decision has been taken yet.”
“The timing and method will be decided by us and us alone,” the spokesman said at the weekly news briefing.
Local government officials and tribesmen, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Washington Times that Mr. Bahadur has asked Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, led by Hakimullah Mehsud, to leave their sanctuaries in North Waziristan because their presence provides a pretext for the government to launch the offensive.
Al Qaeda-linked TTP is the largest and most mainstream Pakistani Taliban group; Mr. Bahadur’s military outfit is a non-TTP entity.
The TTP militants recently relocated to South Waziristan, as most of its fighters belong to the Mehsud tribe that resides in South Waziristan. The TTP militants moved to North Waziristan after Pakistani security forces launched a major offensive in its base in South Waziristan.
The Wazir and Mehsud tribes are the two largest in the Waziristan region.
Inam Wazir, a resident of the town of Razmak located on the border of North and South Waziristan, told The Washington Times by telephone that he recently saw hundreds of militants riding in a large number of vehicles heading toward South Waziristan.
The militants are mobilizing as the Pakistani military claims it controls more than 90 percent of South Waziristan, once considered to be the most dangerous hub of TTP and al Qaeda terrorists.
Mr. Bahadur is said to be exercising extreme caution in the face of pressure from his Wazir tribesmen, who are supporting him on a single point: to prevent the death and displacement of local residents by not fighting with Pakistani security forces or providing any pretext for the military offensive there.
These residents are looking to the example of millions of people in neighboring tribal districts of Bajaur, Mohmand and Orakzai in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) as well as of Swat-Malakand, who were displaced after escaping collateral damage during earlier anti-Taliban and anti-al Qaeda military offensives.
According to news reports, Pakistani military authorities asked Mr. Bahadur to choose between the Pakistani military offensive or driving out TTP militants himself. In addition, the government and Mr. Bahadur reached an agreement under which 20 Taliban prisoners were set free in return for the militants’ promise not to attack security convoys.
Now that TTP militants have left the area, it is not clear whether military authorities are still set to carry out the offensive. If the military operations go forward, Pakistan could lose its ally.
However, Pakistani authorities have not asked Mr. Bahadur to drive out foreign militants of al Qaeda and its affiliated groups, despite the fact that North Waziristan is viewed as a stronghold for al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban group called Haqqani Network.
The latter is led by commander Sirajuddin Haqqani, and his network has close ties to al Qaeda and claimed responsibility, along with the TTP, for the deadly suicide attack on CIA Forward Base Chapman in the Afghan province of Khost in December.
Seven CIA officers, including the base chief, and an officer of Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate were killed in the suicide bomb attack. Six others were seriously wounded.
The attacker was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor. While the CIA thought al-Balawi was an important informant who could help capture top leaders of the Taliban and al Qaeda, he actually was loyal to insurgents fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.
Apart from the attack on the CIA, the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda and their Pakistani affiliates have launched continual attacks in Afghanistan on U.S.-NATO forces using North Waziristan as their base.
Pakistan’s military for years has been reluctant to launch its North Waziristan offensive despite pressure from the United States. The unwillingness is thought to be a result of old links between Pakistani forces and the Haqqani Network and Pakistani Taliban groups, who are based in North Waziristan. Apart from those elements, North Waziristan is the main base of al Qaeda in Pakistan.
Of the seven tribal districts forming the country’s tribal areas called the FATA, North Waziristan is the only region where no military operation has been conducted since the deployment of Pakistani regular forces in the tribal territories in 2004. FATA forms the bulk of Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, also called the Durand Line. Since the country’s founding in 1947, regular troops had never been deployed in the FATA.
Most al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists in North Waziristan are thought to be hiding in Mir Ali and surrounding areas that are outside Mr. Bahadur’s control, which is likely the reason Pakistani authorities did not ask him to oust foreign militants. Mir Ali, the second biggest town in North Waziristan after the central town of Miramshah, falls in the Dawar tribal area.
Dawar tribesmen make up some 20 percent of the population of North Waziristan and generally have welcomed invaders and foreign occupiers in order to survive. Most Dawar tribesmen have left their ancestral area because of fear of al Qaeda and other foreign militants.
While the Afghan Haqqani Network had strong ties to Mr. Bahadur’s group, local residents suggested that in order to avoid attacks and related destruction in his native area, Mr. Bahadur is set to halt his support for Haqqani militants.
Senior leaders of the Bahadur group regard Haqqani militants as nonlocals who more easily will cross over into their native Khost province in Afghanistan during the offensive, leaving local Wazir tribesmen to bear the brunt of the offensive’s devastation.
The Haqqani Network is based in the Dattakhel village of Mir Ali, where the group operates a complex of madrassas, or Islamic seminaries, known as Mumba-ul-Uloom, or Repository of Knowledge.
Observers in Pakistan say that since al Qaeda’s main ally among Pakistani Taliban, the TTP militants, left North Waziristan and the terrorists are limited to a specific tribal area, the upcoming large-scale military offensive by Pakistani forces may not produce the desired results.
“As the dominant Wazir tribesmen in North Waziristan have put great pressure on the militants led by Gul Bahadur, the situation could and must be adroitly handled by the Pakistani authorities to completely restore the state write,” said Imran Khan, a Peshawar-based specialist on the tribal areas.
Mr. Khan said the Pakistani military should ask the Bahadur militants to dismantle all their checkpoints, as a symbol of their control, and facilitate the security forces in controlling areas formerly under the militants’ control.
“In this way, any sanctuaries for foreign and nonlocal militants, which by design or default emerged, could be eliminated,” he said.
Past Pakistani military offensives against the Taliban and al Qaeda were unable to eliminate foreign and local militants.
Still, observers say there is no better solution than military action to root out al Qaeda from its sanctuaries.
The CIA has carried out about 140 drone attacks in Pakistan, and about 70 percent were against targets in North Waziristan against Pakistani Taliban, Haqqani Network and al Qaeda militants. Still, the drone strikes have not been able to eliminate the terrorists.
One of the most significant drone attacks took place May 21, when the No. 3 al Qaeda leader, Mustafa Ahmad Mohammad Uthman Abu al-Yazid, also known as Sheik Saeed al-Misri, was among 10 people killed in the Saidabad village of the Dattakhel subdivision in North Waziristan.
“If instead of an all-out offensive, a targeted and limited offensive is launched, keeping in view the local dynamics, it would have more chances of success,” said former Pakistani Army Maj. Tariq Javed, who served in North Waziristan in the past.
“Moreover, such a limited and targeted offensive backed by a propaganda campaign spreading a fear that a huge military offensive to follow the limited operation may create schisms among the various militant groups present in North Waziristan,” Mr. Khan added.
A Wazir tribal leader based in Miramshah, said in an interview that if Wazir tribesmen were given the assurance by Pakistanis or even the Americans that the military offensive would not be launched in their area, but that they must support the offensive against al Qaeda and the Haqqani Network, then the tribes would support the operation.
“The tribesmen are so fed up with the foreign militants that in an event of U.S. commandos conducting surgical operations against al Qaeda inside North Waziristan due to Pakistani authorities’ reluctance or [inability] to launch the same, then they would welcome these irrespectively who conducts them,” he said.
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