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Map of northwestern Pakistan. |
The Pakistani military claim the Taliban are “fleeing” the Arakzai tribal agency and are moving to a remote region in Khyber that is known to serve as a sanctuary for the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The Pakistani military said the Taliban were regrouping in Khyber’s Tirah Valley, in a press release issued on Sunday.
“Due to successful operation of security forces in others agencies of FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Agences], militants had started fleeing to Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency due to its linkages with other agencies and Afghanistan,” according to the statement released on the website of the Inter-Services Public Relations. “Tirah [is] a strong hold of Lashar-i-Islam [and has] become hub / confluence of militants ex TTP [Taliban], TTS and Foreign fighters. Confirm reports are being received through intelligence sources and Political Administration about growing [number] of militants and threats. Militants have established [their] hide outs and training centers in different parts of Tirah Valley.”
The Pakistani military, led by the paramilitary Frontier Corps, has been conducting sustained operations in Arazkai for months. But fighting has intensified since March 21. The military has claimed 419 Taliban fighters have been killed during ground operations and air and artillery strikes in the tribal agency over the past 23 days, according to data compiled from Pakistani news reports by The Long War Journal. Only eight soldiers have been reported killed in Arakzai during that time. Two soldiers and 41 Taliban fighters were reported killed during clashes today, Dawn reported.
Although the military maintains that 90 percent of the lower areas of Arakzai have been “cleared,” the most intense fighting has occurred in this region.
Both Arakzai and Khyber have become hubs of Taliban and al Qaeda activity since the Pakistani military launched an operation in the Mehsud tribal areas in South Waziristan in October 2009. The Taliban have also relocated to Kurram, North Waziristan, and the Wazir tribal areas of South Waziristan under the control of Mullah Nazir. [See LWJ reports, “Taliban escape South Waziristan operation,” and “Pakistani airstrikes in Khyber kill 45,” for more information.]
The military claimed it killed 45 members of the pro-Taliban Lashkar-e-Islam during airstrikes on April 10, but locals said that mostly civilians were killed while holding a jirga, or tribal meeting. Members of the Kuki Khel Afridi tribe stated that 63 people were killed in the airstrikes and have lodged a protest with the the Khyber political agent. The government has paid survivors of the airstrikes, despite military claims that those killed were Lashkar-e-Islam fighters.
14 Comments
This is not good. Kyber is the region where US military supplies flow through.
Can we really believe these reports? The Pak gov is so well known for acting like “Baghdad Bob”, it’s hard to know whether to take them seriously or not. It would be great news if true.
Is this how the final endgame will play out? Squeeze them slowly into a final pocket and then destroy them, ala the Tamil Tigers? Or are we still years away from that…
BRAD i would like 4 it to work that way, but i don’t see a military endgame. Its going to be a political solution, with the Talibs back in the saddle. Karzai is a dirty swine, his bro is too. I cannot imagine sending my son to fight this war.
I too believe they will run until they can run no more, and then they will have to stand and fight. This was the pattern of the American Indians, many of which were semi-nomadic.
I predict that before this war is ended, both Pakistan and Afghanistan will have moved much closer to western values. Polls done over the last 2 yrs consistently show that the radical Islamic penchant for killing civilians indiscriminately has turned the Muslim street firmly against them.
I don’t expect Afghanistan, nor Pakistan to apply to become the 51st and 52nd state, but I do think the intensity and pervasiveness of protests against corruption, in a culture that has tolerated corruption and abuse of power for thousands of years, is a very encouraging sign that Central and South Asia’s values, and expectations of their governments, are changing.
India can play an important role as a model of a functioning democratic government that is neither Christian nor Jewish.
These are very powerful forces. Recall that Al Sadr’s clout was largely eliminated with the stroke of a pen. The Iraqi government simply said “you can have military power or political power, but not both” Sadr chose military power, lost that to defeat, and by doing so, lost the ability to field his political candidates. Currently, I believe the Kurds have more political power than Al Sadr. Learning the rules and playing by them is an important part of the western notion of the rule of law (rules), vs the rule of men.
I haven’t been keeping a detailed track, but it seems to me that more than ever the Taliban are initiating attacks on checkpoints only to be driven back with significant losses. I wonder if it is true or if my memory is bad. At any rate, the Taliban tried again today.
Geo TV: 15 militants including foreign commander killed in Jandola
Hmmm. I wonder if this has anything to do with the Frontier Corps (seemingly newly found) successful counterattack strategy against the Taliban?
Reuters: U.S. military playing expanded role in Pakistan
Civy,
You might want to look at current news. Al-Sadr is making a very substantial comeback. He did not win the election, but it looks like he may be the kingmaker.
How much reliable are all these reports of ‘so many number of militants have been killed’? Are there independant news agency reporters or is it all as per the military handouts? The Taliban fighters are not nuniformed soldiers. Then how one knows whether they are really militants or innocent civilians.
Guptan asks : “how one knows whether they are really militants or innocent civilians?”
We’ve been over this before but i’m more than happy to go over it again. The rule of thumb is as follows : If they run, they’re militants. If they don’t run, they’re well disciplined millitants.
Either way my heart soars like an eagle whenever I read these righteous body counts. Great work boys. Keep pouring on the heat. Victory is only achieved when the enemy takes more losses than it can bear. We’re getting closer but it’s gonna be a Loooooonng War.
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2cents…yes, but to the extent Al Sadar is making a comeback, it is by the rule of law, not at the point of a gun. His influence is still far, far below what it was in the Summer of ’06.
Bungo,
There is no static group in an insurgency that is your enemy. Your enemy is whoever gets up in the morning and decides he is your enemy.
A sound strategy not only kills those who refuse to change their minds, but also attempts to convince the overwhelming majority that they would be better off being your friends.
This is exactly what happened in AnBar and Diyala. It’s also almost the whole of the difference between General Casey’s approach and General Petraeus’ approach.
Casey’s approach didn’t work, the Soviet’s heavy handed approach didn’t work, and our heavy-handed approach in Vietnam didn’t work. (Interestingly, the USMC wanted to do Clear, Hold, Build in Vietnam, but they were put under US Army command which favored a WW-II approach. Read Bing West’s book “The Village”) In fact, it didn’t even work for the Hatfields and McCoys.
Killing innocent people, just because we have the capability, is not only morally bankrupt, but creates and endless stream of enemy combatants. We didn’t kill all the Germans in WW-I or WW-II, nor all the Japanese, nor Hungarians, nor N Vietnamese. Just enough that those who though being our friend wasn’t such an imposition could carry the day.
If some Mexican drug lord kills 2/3rds of your family and then asks for your support, I’m sure you’ll feel more his enemy than his friend. All that is lacking then is an opportunity and you’ll be all about payback time. How is this hard to get? It’s about the most basic of all human emotions.
Dear Mr. Civy, As always I enjoy your input but I can’t agree with a lot of your last post (in reality it’s probably too condensed due to time constraints so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt ) But… I stand by my belief that winning is possible through massive and overwhelming military force (something the Russians never really got close to achieving in Afghanistan. Their tactic was more in the vein of terrorizing the enemy when possible, but I digress). In fact that’s how WWII ended and that’s how Viet Nam would have ended had we been able to invade N. Viet Nam and continued the B52 bombings in the North and if we weren’t afraid of China’s involvement. IN fact we basically won Viet Nam by ’70, ’72. The problem was that Tedddy Kennedy and his cohorts in Congress decided we were going to pull out AND stop all miltary/financial aid to the South, otherwise we could have Easily had a Korean type partition solution at the very least (read Lewis Sorley’s excellent book on this subject : “A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam”). The “Winning Hearts and Minds” idea is a tactical concept that has yet to show clear results, in my mind, especially employed by an outside/third party like our forces. If it works at all it only shows results when used by the new government in that country (which may be ocurring in Iraq but is definitly not happening in Afghanistan). I do, however, like the “Clear and Hold” strategy and think that is probably the most pragmatic approach in Afghanistan. At least until we are allowed to carpet bomb the Taliban’s sanctuaries in Pakistan (which we both know ain’t gonna happen until there’s another large terror strike in the US that can be traced back to them)
Lastly, I never said that the enemy was “static” but they certainly are identifiable and definable and Today they are The Taliban and Al Queda (of course, that could change tomorrow). Their only wrinkle is that they don’t wear “uniforms and they like to mix in with the “civilians”). Don’t put a whole lot of faith in us making them decide to be our friends. We’ll all be old, gray or dead by the time that happens, if it Ever happens). It’s not a provable tactic OR strategy and we simply don’t have that much time. Never underestimate the value of decimating your enemy on the “battlefield”. Peace, Out and looking forward to more of your excellent posts in the future.
Bungo: You don’t need “massive overwhelming force” to win against an insurgency. For at least two examples see Malaya in the 1950s and Oman in the 1970s. Both examples of UK Special Forces using targeted force plus “hearts and minds” and a loss for the Communist insurgents.
In both cases they didn’t wear uniforms and mixed with the civilians though in this case various fatwa’s lead AQ fighters to dress in a distinct manner that enables them to be IDed from the air (as I and BIll have pointed out before).
COIN + SF + high tech intel/imagery works well. The old WW2/Korea style large scale conventional wars are long gone especially against non-state actors. We have much better techniques today and much lower casualty rates.
kp, you may be right and I may be right. It’s always stimulating to debate strategy and tactics. Unfortunately our arguments probably don’t really matter much as this onion gets uglier with each removed layer. Currently it seems like our forces are all over the place strategically and tactically with a lot of starting and stopping with little perceptable forward momentum, our Afghan partners are corrupt, inneffective, incompetent and unmotivated and our Pakistani partners are duplicitous, untrustworthy and playing so many factions against the other that you literally need a complicated matrix to even begin to figure it out. The bottom line is the writing is already on the wall that the current US administration is going to bug out in 2011 and hand the keys over to Karzai. At that point all the players will negotiate some kind of deal that will last no longer than a couple of weeks before everone starts killing each other all over again and the opium trade flourishes once more. It’s going to be just lovely.