Training Afghan Police: A Failing Project?

With Raw Recruits, Afghan Police Buildup Falters
By ROD NORDLAND, February 2, 2010, New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — The NATO general in charge of training the Afghan police has some tongue-in-cheek career advice for the country’s recruits.

“It’s better to join the Taliban; they pay more money,” said Brig. Gen. Carmelo Burgio, from Italy’s paramilitary Carabinieri force.

That sardonic view reflects a sobering reality. The attempts to build a credible Afghan police force are faltering badly even as officials acknowledge that the force will be a crucial piece of the effort to have Afghans manage their own security so American forces can begin leaving next year.

Though they have revamped the program recently and put it under new leadership, Afghan, NATO and American officials involved in the training effort list a daunting array of challenges, as familiar as they are intractable.
One in five recruits tests positive for drugs, while fewer than one in 10 can read and write — a rate even lower than the Afghan norm of 15 percent literacy. Many cannot even read a license plate number. Taliban infiltration is a constant worry; incompetence an even bigger one.

After eight weeks of training, an average of 5 percent of recruits cannot pass firearms tests — but are given a gun and sent out to duty. Unsurprisingly, the Afghan National Police have the highest casualty rates of all the security forces fighting the Taliban; 646 died last year, compared with 282 Afghan Army soldiers and 388 NATO troops, according to NATO figures.

The death rate, poor pay and lack of equipment are among the reasons that a fourth of the officers quit every year, making the Afghan government’s lofty goals of substantially building up the police force even harder to achieve.

For complete article, click here
Related:
Training of Afghan Police by Europe Is Found Lacking - NYT
U.S. plans major Afghan police boost - Holbrooke
Can Afghanistan’s New “Guardian” Militia Restore Security in the Provinces? - Jamestown Foundation
Interagency assessment of Afghanistan Police Training and Readiness - Inspectors General of US DOD and DOS - 2006

Inside Pakistan Today...

Abracadabra! By Kamran Shafi
Dawn, 15 Dec, 2009

And quite suddenly not only is there a Quetta shura, large as life itself, it has also been ‘significantly damaged’ by Pakistan’s security forces!

Now, all of this must have happened in one day flat, for everyone and Charlie’s Aunt were going blue in the face till three days ago, and for months now, telling us there was no such thing: that it was a figment of the Americans’ imagination and of those the ‘Ghairat Lobby’ calls traitors and friends of the Hindu/Christian/Jewish lobby.

That it was one more brick in the Americans’ case for taking out our bombs through Blackwater. Since when, please, has yours truly been yelling and screaming that we should hear the cries of good people like Mir Hasil Bizenjo, a sitting senator and son of that good man of fond memory, Mir Ghous Bux Bizenjo; Sardar Akhtar Mengal, a former chief minister of Balochistan, and son of Sardar Ataullah Mengal; Habib Jalib Baloch, and other Baloch leaders when they say that there is a Quetta shura of the Afghan Taliban operational in Quetta itself, and up to no good?

All I, for one, got for my pains were rude and threatening emails from the ‘Ghairat (honour) Lobby’ and its paid handmaidens.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we repeatedly shoot ourselves in the foot with an elephant gun every third day, can anyone please tell me? What is it with us, for God’s sake, that makes us portray ourselves as so many jokers and clowns before the rest of the world?

Why do we repeatedly make a spectacle of ourselves so that the world laughs at us, as it would at a country unsure of itself and with no faith in its own (good, mark you) people; a country which would much rather hide behind too-clever-by-half statements, and behind what is known in Punjabi slang as barraks, in English empty, loud threats (as in Punjabi movies: Haa Thaadi) to no one in particular?

Our country is in very deep trouble, my friends, very serious trouble indeed.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Roots of Terrorism - Shahid Javed Burki, Dawn
No more jihadi proxies - Dr Manzur Ejaz, Daily Times
Praying behind imams who endorse terror declared haram - DT
Tribal areas: still a long way to go - Rahimullah Yusufzai, The News
Military Victory in South Waziristan or the Beginning of a Long War? - Imtiaz Ali, Jamestown Foundation

Baitullah Mehsud Dead?

Taliban leader in Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, 'dies from kidney failure'
Speculation is mounting that Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani wing of the Taliban, has died from kidney failure
By Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad
Telegraph, UK: 01 Oct 2008

Mehsud was accused by Pakistan and US intelligence of being responsible for the assassination of the former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.

Rumours of his death are circulating in Pakistan. The former fitness instructor turned terrorist leader has diabetes and has been reported to be unwell for months.

Mehsud, in his mid-thirties, rose suddenly from obscurity possibly with the support of a faction of Pakistan's shadowy ISI military intelligence that has secretly backed the Taliban.

However, his doctor said he had an unspecified kidney problem, but that he was alive.

Mehsud has denied involvement in the attack on Bhutto as she left an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Dec. 27, which her widower, Mr Zardari, has blamed on Pakistan's establishment.

Officials have accused Mehsud, the head of the country's umbrella Taliban organisation, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), of being behind a wave of suicide attacks in Pakistan since the middle of last year.

Mixed reports surrounding the Taliban leader's death came as American missiles, fired from an unmanned drone aircraft, killed at least six people in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border.

The missiles struck the home of a local Taliban commander before midnight on Tuesday near Mir Ali, a town in North Waziristan.

"We have reports of five dead including foreign militants," said an intelligence official.

The strike took place shortly after tribesmen shot at three drones circling the village of Khusali Toorikhel in North Waziristan, a known haunt of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.

Tension between Pakistan and the United States has escalated since Washington stepped up attacks on Pakistani territory after a new civilian government came to power in March.

American forces have carried out seven missile strikes fired from pilotless drones and a commando raid on the Pakistani side of the border in the past month.

Last Thursday, Pakistani and US troops exchanged fire along the border after two US military helicopters came under fire.

Though both sides played down the incident later, Pakistan contended that the US helicopters had entered Pakistani territory while Washington argued they had not left Afghanistan.

America has expressed frustration at the continued support for the Taliban by Pakistan's military intelligence agency.

On Tuesday the Afghan head of intelligence told Al Jazeera news broadcaster that Pakistan did not need a military operation to tackle the Taliban but only to "soft knock their houses" in the Pakistani cities of Quetta and Peshawar.

President Asif Ali Zardari has vowed zero tolerance against violations of Pakistan's sovereignty.

Washington claimed to respect Pakistani sovereignty on Monday in a joint statement with Pakistan following talks between the US deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte, and Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

"The United States affirmed its support for Pakistan's sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity," according to the joint statement issued by the State Department.

However, it is believed that a secret deal exists permitting missile strikes against foreign fighters.

The former foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, revealed at the weekend that a deal allowed for "limited" American action on Pakistani soil.

Also see:
Top Pakistan militant 'not dead' - BBC
Profile of Baitullah Mehsud - BBC
Baitullah Mehsud: South Waziristan's Unofficial Amir - Jamestown Foundation
Pakistani Taliban leader Mehsud seriously ill: officials, militants - AFP

LATEST UPDATE:
Mehsud visits parts of S.Waziristan
The News, Updated at: 2050 PST, Thursday, October 02, 2008

WANA: Supreme commander of the banned outfit Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud visited different area of South Waziristan on Thursday.

According to Taliban sources, Meshsud visited Makeen, Ladha, Badar, Salay Rogha and other areas.

The tribesmen upon seeing the Taliban commander, fired their guns in the air.

President Tehreek-i-Insaf South Waziristan, Toofan Burki garlanded Baitullah Mehsud and put traditional Pagri (turban) upon his head.

Speaking on the occasion, the speakers said the electronic media is airing news regarding the death of Baitullah Mehsud, causing concern among the tribesmen.

Therefore, the tribal elders decided that Mehsud should undertake visit of the tribal areas so that people could see him.

U.S. strikes may not halt al Qaeda: Reuters

ANALYSIS-U.S. strikes may not halt al Qaeda
10 Sep 2008, Reuters
By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Renewed U.S. efforts to defeat al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban fighters based in the rugged, lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border area may fall short because of an incomplete strategy and lack of local support.

Last week's election by lawmakers of Asif Ali Zardari as Pakistan's new president raises fresh questions about whether his government will give even tacit approval for the growing number of U.S. strikes at the militants, analysts said.

Ousting Taliban and al Qaeda fighters from the border area is a key to stability in Afghanistan, riven by violence nearly seven years after the U.S.-led invasion, and in Pakistan, where Islamist attacks are straining an already unstable government.

"There is no quick fix to this problem," said Andrew McGregor, terrorism editor at the Jamestown Foundation, a security think tank.

A substantial strengthening of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and a strong police presence in Pakistan, were necessary to do the job, analysts said.

SHIFTING FORCES

As the United States prepared for the somber anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks by al Qaeda in 2001, President George W. Bush this week announced plans to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, reflecting a partial shift in forces from Iraq.

The U.S. military conceded on Wednesday it was not winning in Afghanistan and said it would revise its strategy to include safe havens in Pakistan.

Still, Bush's plan to step up the fight in Afghanistan was quickly criticized as inadequate.

"The core frustration is we just don't have what we need to do the job on the ground in Afghanistan," said Frederick Barton of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Pakistan's failure to control its side of the border made the problem worse, he said.

The United States has killed several senior al Qaeda figures in Pakistan through stepped-up attacks by pilotless aircraft over the last year.

The Washington Post said Pakistani officials reported 11 strikes so far this year, up from three in 2007. Tension rose last week when U.S. commandos attacked an al Qaeda target inside Pakistan, apparently without prior notice to Islamabad.

Angry officials in Pakistan said women and children were among the dead in the first known U.S. ground operation there since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

"Such attacks can discredit the new government," said Hassan Abbas, a Harvard University research fellow and former regional Pakistani police chief in the border area.

He called the timing of the strikes "surprising, because that creates political problems for the new president."

QUIET UNDERSTANDING

Zardari was sworn in as president on Tuesday to succeed Pervez Musharraf, a close U.S. ally who resigned to avoid impeachment.

Musharraf and the Bush administration are believed to have had quiet understandings about U.S. military strikes but Abbas said these were now under review by the new administration in Islamabad.

Zardari vowed at his swearing in to work with neighbors including Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who had tensions with Musharraf, but said defeating the militants required popular support and avoiding civilian casualties.

Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, said in a strongly worded statement on Wednesday that foreign troops would not be allowed to carry out missions on Pakistani soil and vowed to defend the country's territorial integrity.

"There is no question of any agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border," Kayani said. "Falling for short-term gains while ignoring our long-term interest is not the right way forward."

Whether or not Zardari acquiesces to permit new attacks, he "will have great difficulty in exerting any influence on the situation," McGregor said.

Further hampering the government, he said, Pakistan's military intelligence maintains ties with the Taliban as a way to project influence into Afghanistan.

LAW AND ORDER

Drone strikes and commando raids can have only limited success against the militants without a broader strategy to protect local populations, analysts said.

"The only way you are going to be able to shut them down is if you have a reassuring presence in enough of the villages ... and the people of these communities are comfortable and they turn on these people (the militants) themselves," Barton said.

Pakistan's fragile government and tank-heavy army are ill-suited to mountain fighting, senior U.S. intelligence official Thomas Fingar said last week.

Rather than troops, a heavy police presence was needed in the region, Abbas said.

"Effective law enforcement is critical for defeating terrorists," he wrote in the Sept. 11 issue of a West Point Combating Terrorism Center's journal.

As for bin Laden, who remains at large as Bush prepares to leave office in January after presidential and congressional elections on Nov. 4, the White House vowed to keep hunting but suggested it may be a long-term project.

"This president, and I'm sure future presidents, will continue to try to track down al Qaeda leaders," spokeswoman Dana Perino said on Wednesday. "We will continue to try to find Osama bin Laden." (Editing by Kristin Roberts and John O'Callaghan)

Also See:
Analysis: Dealing with distrust — Talat Masood, Daily Times, September 11, 2008

The Impact of Pashtun Tribal Differences on the Pakistani Taliban

The Impact of Pashtun Tribal Differences on the Pakistani Taliban
By Rahimullah Yusufzai, Terrorism Monitor, Jamestown Foundation, Volume 6, Issue 3 (February 7, 2008)

Though members of militant Islamic groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and other jihadis have almost the same anti-United States and pro-al-Qaeda worldview, they are not especially disciplined when it comes to organizational matters. Difficulty in this area explains the existence of so many extremist factions operating under different leaders and commanders who sometimes express conflicting opinions on domestic and international issues.

The formation of an umbrella organization, Tehrek-e-Taliban-Pakistan (Movement of Pakistani Taliban, or TTP) on December 14, 2007, was meant to bring the different Taliban groups operating in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) into one formation and improve their coordination (The News International [Islamabad], December 15, 2007). Its spokesman, Maulvi Omar, a shadowy figure using a fake name, claimed that 27 Taliban factions operating in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were part of the movement. Nobody was surprised when Baitullah Mehsud, amir of the Taliban in the territory populated by the Mehsud Pashtun tribe in South Waziristan, was named as leader of the TTP. He was the most powerful among the Pakistani Taliban commanders and it was natural that he would lead the organization.

Tribal Nature of the Pakistani Taliban

The tribal nature of some of the Taliban groups soon became evident when militants in North Waziristan warned the Mehsud-led Taliban in neighboring South Waziristan not to launch attacks against the Pakistan Army in their part of the tribal region (The News International, January 30). The warning came from Hafiz Gul Bahadur, the amir of the Taliban in North Waziristan, despite the fact that he was earlier named deputy to Mehsud in the Tehrek-e-Taliban-Pakistan. Association with the TTP and being its deputy leader did not mean much when it came to the territorial and tribal limits of each Taliban group and commander. Hafiz Gul Bahadur was particularly furious when Mehsud’s men started firing rockets into the army’s camp at Razmak, a town in North Waziristan, during the recent fighting between the military and the Mehsud-commanded militants.

It was also evident that Hafiz Gul Bahadur and his Taliban fighters failed to abide by one of the major decisions of the TTP by refusing to coordinate attacks on the security forces in North Waziristan to help ease pressure on the Taliban fighting under Mehsud’s command in South Waziristan. This failure defied a Taliban decision that every Taliban group was required to come to the assistance of others in its area of operation that were under attack from the Pakistan Army. As part of that policy, a Taliban group in the semi-tribal area of Darra Adamkhel seized five military trucks packed with ammunition and supplies for the troops in South Waziristan. The attack triggered fighting in the gun-manufacturing town in a bid to overstretch the resources of the Pakistan Army (Dawn [Islamabad], January 26). Taliban factions in Mohmand, Bajaur and Orakzai tribal regions and also in the Swat district of the NWFP launched attacks against the security forces during this period as part of a strategy to ease military pressure on Mehsud and his men. But instead of launching attacks on the military, the Taliban fighters in North Waziristan announced an extension of their unilateral ceasefire with the government and even issued a warning to Mehsud to stay out of their territory. One reason the North Waziristan militants stayed out of the conflict in South Waziristan was the fact that they belonged to different Pashtun tribes; Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud belongs to the Mehsud tribe, while Hafiz Gul Bahadur and others in his group belong to the Torikhel Wazir and Daur tribes.

Command Structure in the Pakistani Taliban

The lack of coordination between the Taliban factions in South Waziristan and North Waziristan also showed that the TTP had yet to attain unity in the ranks of the militants operating in different tribal regions and districts. On paper, the TTP looks impressive, with powerful components in all seven tribal agencies and in most of the six semi-tribal Frontier Regions and several settled districts of the NWFP. Its command structure also appears strong, with representatives from tribal regions and districts where the militants had fought the army to a standstill or forced the government to deploy large numbers of troops to secure the area. Led by Mehsud from South Waziristan, the TTP’s deputy leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur belongs to North Waziristan and the second deputy head, Maulana Faqir Muhammad, is from Bajaur. Taliban groups in Swat and elsewhere are also represented on the TTP’s 40-member decision-making shura (consultative council). However, these groups also have regional and local political agendas and are, therefore, under pressure from their tribes and communities not to become involved in wider conflicts that could transform their areas into battlegrounds and contribute to their suffering.

A case study of Baitullah Mehsud’s leadership in South Waziristan would be instructive in understanding the tribal influences that impede unity among Taliban factions in FATA. As a Mehsud tribesman, he cannot freely operate in the Wana area, which is inhabited by the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe, even though both the tribes live side by side in South Waziristan and are almost equally affected by Talibanization. Past rivalries have kept the Ahmadzai Wazir and Mehsud tribes apart, and their relations to this day are uneasy and uncertain. As a consequence, Taliban members belonging to the two tribes maintained separate command structures to avoid friction and prevent tribal animosities from poisoning their relations. The Taliban among the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe thus functioned independently of commander Mehsud, first under the command of the late Nek Muhammad and then Haji Omar, Noor Islam, Maulvi Muhammad Abbas, Javed Karmazkhel and Maulvi Aziz. Last April, a split occurred among these Taliban commanders, with Maulvi Muhammad Nazir and Haji Hannan ousting Haji Omar and his allies for offering protection to foreign militants from Uzbekistan and other countries and accepting arms and money from the Pakistan Army. The Taliban in Wana have thus parted ways on the issue of supporting or opposing the presence in their area of Uzbek militants aligned with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) (The News International, January 26). In fact, tribal animosities have also influenced the decision of some Taliban fighters to join one or the other side on this issue. Haji Omar and Maulvi Nazir belong to different sub-tribes of the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe and this was a factor in pushing them into rival Taliban camps.

It would also be wrong to assume that all Mehsud clans and tribesmen support Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud. Many blame him for bringing suffering on the tribe and making their villages a battleground for the military and the militants. However, they cannot speak out against him due to fear of reprisal. The Mehsuds living outside their tribal homes in South Waziristan are relatively free to express their opinion about the Taliban commander, though they must be careful because Mehsud has followers and informants even in places like Tank and Dera Ismail Khan, where Mehsud families have migrated and become largely urbanized. The Shabikhel sub-tribe of the Mehsud is apparently proud of Baitullah because he is one of their own, but other clans do not have that kind of bond with the Taliban leader. Tribal affinities are fairly strong in Waziristan and it is common for members of a tribe to become closer in the event of a dispute with other tribes.

Factionalism in Waziristan and Bajaur

On occasion, there are reports that Taliban commanders and the rank and file in North Waziristan have developed differences on certain issues and split into factions comprising members from the Torikhel Wazir and Daur tribes. There are also signs that the local Taliban have evolved into Miramshah and Mir Ali factions, named after the two major towns in North Waziristan. The Mir Ali group often complains that their area has suffered greater damage as a result of militants’ attacks and retaliatory military strikes than Miramshah, which is the headquarters of North Waziristan and is better defended by government security forces.

In the Bajaur tribal region, the Taliban militants are mainly concentrated in the Mamond area, which is on the border of Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province. The top Taliban commander in Bajaur, Maulana Faqir Muhammad, also belonged to Mamond, as did his deputy Maulana Liaquat Ali, who was killed in a U.S. missile strike on an Islamic school in Chingai village on October 30, 2006 (The Nation [Pakistan], October 31, 2006). The Taliban influence has only marginally spread to other parts of Bajaur.

There is no denying the fact that tribal affiliations play a major role in the formation of Taliban groups and the choice of commanders. The Taliban and other jihad advocates often claim that they believe in the concept of a common Muslim ummah (community) and reject the division of their religion into groups based on ethnicity, language, geographical borders and tribes. In practice this is easier said than done. In tribal societies such as that of the Pashtuns inhabiting Pakistan and Afghanistan, even ideologically-driven radical Taliban and jihadist fighters gravitate toward their own tribe and local commander whether fighting U.S.-led Coalition forces or the armed forces of Pakistan.

Also See: Taliban find fertile new ground in Pakistan By Imtiaz Ali

Increasing Talibanization in Pakistan's Seven Tribal Agencies: Jamestown Foundation Report

Increasing Talibanization in Pakistan's Seven Tribal Agencies
By Hassan Abbas
Jamestown Foundation, September 27, 2007

The government of President Pervez Musharraf is facing policy failure in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. Taliban forces and their sympathizers are becoming entrenched in the region and are aggressively expanding their influence and operations (especially in Tank, Dera Ismail Khan and Swat Valley in the North-West Frontier Province). A lethal combination of Musharraf's political predicament and declining public support, a significant rise in suicide attacks targeting the army and the reluctance of soldiers deputed in the area to engage tribal gangs militarily further exacerbates this impasse. Observing this, many militants associated with local Pakistani jihadi groups have moved to FATA to help their "brothers in arms" and benefit from the sanctuary. In the midst of this, election season is descending upon Pakistan and Musharraf's survival prospects are diminishing. This dim scenario has consequences for Pakistan's policy in the FATA region. Pakistan will predictably revert to "peace deals" in the short-term, leading to a lowering of the number of military checkpoints in the area (Daily Times, September 23). If history is any indicator, this will help Talibanization in the region and provide more opportunities to the ISI to indirectly support some Taliban commanders sympathetic to Pakistan's objectives. Overall, this will likely reduce trouble in downtown Islamabad, but the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area will remain on fire.

Poor coordination between the Pakistani army and NATO/ISAF, Hamid Karzai's failure to make Afghanistan a functional state and the abundance of drug money in southern Afghanistan are some of the important variables in this context. Additionally, Musharraf himself admits that the crisis in the area is increasingly turning out to be a Pashtun insurgency. However, the factors that "limit" Pakistan's effective clampdown on all things Taliban in FATA remain linked to its fear about increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan if the Taliban are comprehensively defeated, and the lack of Pakistani public support for anything that appears to be done in pursuance of the U.S.-led global war on terrorism. These perceptions significantly affect the morale of army commanders and soldiers operating in the region. Musharraf has largely failed to make a strong case to his people about the need for strong military action against the Taliban in FATA. He has often called this policy as being in the "national interest," but has not convincingly explained how the army alone defines the national interest. More so, Pakistanis have seen the military defining such interests too often in the past with devastating effects for the state, and interpret Pakistan's current fight against the Taliban in terms of succumbing to U.S. demands and interests.

With this backdrop in view, this analysis outlines what is happening today in each of the seven tribal agencies in FATA and what the implications are for Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States.

Bajaur Agency

Bajaur Agency overlooks Afghanistan's Kunar province, where U.S. forces are battling al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri escaped the reportedly CIA-led attack at Damadola in Bajaur on January 13, 2006, while one of his close relatives was among the 18 killed. Damadola is considered a stronghold of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) units, and the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) has representation in parliament from Bajaur (Daily Times, February 13, 2006). Bajaur during the 1980s and 1990s was known as the "Poppy Kingdom," and many Afghan refugee camps (functioning until 2005) were a source of pro-Taliban recruitment in the area.

In August this year, talks between the Taliban and a tribal jirga (supported by the Pakistani government) to improve the law and order situation in Bajaur failed as the Taliban wanted the government to first release some arrested militants (Daily Times, August 7). Trouble had broken out in the area with the news of the proposed construction of a U.S. helipad in Afghanistan's Kunar province as the tribal leaders sympathetic to the Taliban framed it as a threat to Pakistan (Daily Times, June 17). The strength of the Taliban in the area can be gauged from two recent events: since July this year, they have successfully enforced Friday as the weekly holiday instead of Sunday, which is the official weekly holiday (Daily Times, July 14); secondly, Abdul Ghani Marwat, who headed the government's vaccination campaign in Bajaur, was killed in a bomb attack in February this year amid the Taliban-sponsored rumor that the Pakistani government-run polio vaccination drive was a U.S. plot to sterilize Muslim children (Daily Times, February 20). The rumor was so widespread (projected by Taliban fatwas) that, according to government estimates (which are always conservative), parents of around 24,000 children had refused to give them the polio vaccine (Daily Times, Feb 20).

Khyber Agency

Khyber Agency is the main artery connecting Peshawar to Kabul via the Khyber Pass. Today, many men are seen wearing traditional caps in the agency because of fear, as a local religious outfit sympathetic to the Taliban, Lashkar-i-Islam (Army of Islam), has declared it binding on all men of the agency to wear caps. The leader of the group, Mangle Bagh, in his radio address last week issued this edict and announced that violators' heads will be shaved and they will face a monetary fine (Statesman, September 22). It is pertinent to point out that there is a serious battle going on in the agency between Ansar-ul-Islam—led by Pir Saif ur Rahman—and Lashkar-i-Islam—led by Gul Maiden and Mufti Munir Shakir—since 2005-06 (Daily Times, November 17, 2006, April 1, 2006, December 3, 2006). Both factions have built their militias over the last few years and have entrenched themselves in castle-like strongholds. In essence, this is an intra-Sunni (Deobandi vs. Barelvi) war (Daily Times, March 30, 2006).

After banning music in the tribal areas, the local Taliban in Khyber Agency have also started fining taxi drivers and citizens Rs 500 (about $8) for listening to music cassettes in their cars (Daily Times, March 1). Also recently, militants started distributing pamphlets in Bara Bazaar in Khyber Agency saying that the "Taliban have finally reached Bara," while warning that "if anyone tries to hinder our movement and activities, we will launch a holy war against them" (Mashriq, September 3).

In comparison to other tribal agencies, Khyber Agency (because of its proximity to Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province) is more accessible to Pakistani government functionaries and some development work has been done in the area. For instance, in 2005, Stephen Hadley, the then adviser on national security to President Bush, inaugurated a primary school building project in Surkamar town of Khyber Agency that was financed by the U.S. and Japanese governments in collaboration with the FATA Secretariat (Daily Times, September 28, 2005). Conditions have changed for the worse since then. The extent of the writ of the state can be ascertained from the fact that around a dozen people were killed in June this year when the Taliban attacked the house of the Khyber Agency political agent, Syed Ameeruddin Shah (Daily Jang, June 1).

Kurram Agency

Surrounded by lofty mountains and Afghan territory on three sides, Kurram Agency is the second largest tribal region in FATA. Its headquarters is in Parachinar, just about 90 kilometers from Kabul. According to intelligence estimates, it was also the first geographical point where fleeing al-Qaeda members from Afghanistan landed after the September 11 attacks. Within Pakistan, the route to Kurram goes through Kohat district of the NWFP where permits are obtained to travel to Kurram. Many al-Qaeda militants had moved on to Kohat because Kurram Agency is widely known as pro-Northern Alliance because of its significant Shiite population—a factor that has impacted Taliban objectives in the agency negatively. Shiite-Sunni violence remains the hallmark of this agency, as pro-Taliban factions believe that the Shiites of the area are active against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Various peace jirgas were instituted to bring peace to the area, but without much success (Mashriq, April 14). In April 2007 alone, around 100 people were killed in sectarian clashes (Daily Times, April 28).

The government of Pakistan is planning to construct two small dams in the agency at a cost of 400 million rupees in fiscal year 2007-08 to improve the agricultural sector and thereby improve the economic situation in the area. This will be an important test case for Pakistan, success of which can help the state machinery to increase its control at least in this area as it is an important transit point for cross-border movement into Afghanistan.

Mohmand Agency

Sandwiched between Bajaur and Khyber agencies, this area was considered to be a relatively peaceful region. Pro-Pakistan government tribal leaders still have some control, which is evident from the fact that houses of those giving sanctuary to some proclaimed offenders were attacked as recently as last week (Daily Times, September 23). This was in pursuance of a recent peace deal inked between the Mohmand Agency political administration and the Safi tribesmen, in which the Safi tribesmen agreed to not provide any sanctuary to foreigners (The News, September 15). They also agreed to protect government property and allow the government to move freely in the area, ensuring the safety of roads that pass through the agency. The presence of 200 tribal elders during the signing of the agreement shows some element of success on the part of the government, but the very nature of the deal explains that the government's writ was failing before.

The relative peace in the agency in the last few years owed a lot to the constructive work done by the Pakistani army in the area in 2003-04—by building roads, clinics and schools (Daily Times, July 15, 2004). One of the secrets of this success was sealing the agency's 68 kilometer border with Afghanistan by the Pakistani army in late 2003 (Dawn, July 14, 2004). Unfortunately, conditions have changed since then. In recent months, Taliban militants occupied two Khasadar checkpoints in the Qandharo and Halimzai areas of Mohmand Agency and snatched weapons from officials manning the post. In early September, 10 soldiers of the Frontier Corps were kidnapped in the area as well (Daily Times, September 3). The most tragic development, however, has been the blowing up of a hospital, al-Sehat, earlier this month. It was built by an NGO and located about 10 kilometers away from the Mohmand Agency headquarters, Galanai. It was meant to discourage NGOs operating in the area as the armed men mercifully forced the hospital staff to leave the facility before the attack (The News, September 17).

North Waziristan Agency

As early as late 2005, Pakistani Taliban leaders had declared an Islamic state in North Waziristan. Pakistan opted to cut a peace deal with the power brokers in the area in September 2006 (after convincing the U.S. administration of its utility), but the strategy failed (Daily Times, March 2). Now, abductions of government functionaries and soldiers of the Frontier Corps are a matter of routine. The Taliban of the area maintain that direct U.S. attacks amounted to a violation of the peace deal and hence they are retaliating. Roadside bombs are now a common occurrence. Even those providing food to the army units in the area are targeted (Dawn, September 24). For Musharraf, this is the worst of times because given his precarious political situation, any military action before his re-election as president in October this year is expected to backfire politically. Furthermore, he has committed to give up his position as the army chief after the presidential election, which means he will no longer be actively commanding the Pakistani army.

Orakzai Agency

Orakzai Agency was also largely considered a relatively better governed area within FATA until 2005, but Shiite-Sunni battles of the adjacent Kurram Agency spilled over, creating sectarian tension that consequently attracted the Taliban to this agency. The quarrel over a shrine that both communities venerate became a point of contention. The government was tardy in resolving the dispute and the political agent of Orakzai Agency unduly sided with one of the groups, further complicating the crisis (Daily Times, October 22). Even before this issue, the Taliban patron in Orakzai Agency, Akhunzada Aslam Farooqui, was known to be a close ally of Taliban leader Mullah Omar (Dawn, November 6, 2001).

Like other agencies, Taliban activities are expanding into adjacent districts of the NWFP from this agency as well. In a recent development in Kohat, which is part of the NWFP and borders Orakzai Agency, local Taliban have warned tailors to strictly observe religious codes while sewing clothes for men and women. In a letter sent to tailors, the Taliban threatened to blow up the shops of those not following the orders (Dawn, September 24).

South Waziristan

South Waziristan is at the center of Taliban and al-Qaeda activities in the region along with neighboring North Waziristan. Recently, Mehsud tribesmen aligned with Taliban forces abducted 205 Pakistani troops (135 army soldiers and 70 Frontier Corps troops) along with seizing 20 of their vehicles. The most striking fact, however, is that the government forces offered no resistance while being kidnapped. After more than three weeks, a majority of the soldiers are still in the custody of the Taliban, and the government has been practically forced to engage in negotiations with them. This reflects government weakness in the face of their growing strength and influence, to say the least. Pamphlets being distributed in the agency, while warning local tribes not to side with government forces, assert that "like in Afghanistan, we have established suicide squads for attacks on troops and their allies in Pakistan" (Daily Times, September 3).

Earlier this year, the Pakistani army partially succeeded in tackling al-Qaeda through supporting Maulvi Nazir, a Taliban leader somewhat sympathetic to government objectives. He started an effective campaign against Uzbek militants aligned with al-Qaeda in the area and largely accomplished his goal of evicting Uzbeks from the agency. However, he is pursuing his religious agenda unabatedly, and it is hardly distinguishable from the Taliban's worldview. The death of notorious militant leader Nek Mohammad (now remembered as a hero in the area) in 2004 has helped the Pakistani army take some control out of the hands of Taliban militants, but the vacuum created by his elimination seems to now be filled, and Taliban forces have revived their influence and control.

Conclusion

A UN report released earlier this month said that 80 percent of suicide bombers in Afghanistan had come from the Waziristan agencies. Yet while the Pakistani government has offered to introduce reforms in FATA, little has been done (Dawn, September 26). Political agents continue to dole out funds to handpicked people, often in an attempt to buy peace—hardly an inclusive policy. The $750 million worth of U.S. aid for the uplift of FATA is in the pipeline, but there is no publicly known strategy in place on how to channel the funds, leading to much apprehension and conspiracy theories about who will really benefit in the area.

Furthermore, Pakistan has been rattled by 39 suicide attacks in 2007, so far killing around 350 people, and most of these attacks targeted the Pakistani army, the Frontier Corps and government officials in FATA and the NWFP (GEO TV, September 19). A series of attacks in the Rawalpindi region in August this year were especially meant to attack the Special Services Group (an elite commando unit) and the ISI. This is unprecedented in Pakistan. Many interpret these attacks as a consequence of Musharraf's tough handling of the Red Mosque crisis in July. Clearly, a majority of these attacks relate to the volatile FATA situation and the Pakistani army is now on the defensive. The killings of Abdullah Mehsud and Mullah Dadullah were expected to hit Taliban forces hard, but the Taliban are showing uncommon resilience. Indeed, Musharraf's capacity to respond militarily is curtailed because of political compulsions. For Afghanistan and the United States, this means a troublesome scenario. Pakistan's return to democracy may potentially change things for the better, but Musharraf's move in this direction is sluggish and uncertain.

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The Road to Lal Masjid and its Aftermath

The Road to Lal Masjid and its Aftermath
By Hassan Abbas
Terrorism Monitor, Jamestown Foundation; Volume 5, Issue 14 (July 19, 2007)

It is clear that most Pakistanis wanted Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) leader Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi to be held accountable for his vigilantism and for trying to enforce his extremist version of Islam on society. The public's views have changed, however, now that it has become obvious that the government used indiscriminate force during the operation and since its claims about the presence of foreign militants inside the mosque complex have not been independently verified. The following important questions remain unanswered: why did the government act so benignly for the past six months and allow a problem to augment into a major crisis; who was Abdul Rashid Ghazi and how did he manage to smuggle a huge cache of weapons into the mosque complex; was intelligence flawed or were intelligence agencies involved in the plot; and why did President Pervez Musharraf choose a time for the crackdown that coincided with the meeting scheduled for all of Pakistan's opposition parties in London.

While people search for answers to these critical questions, Pakistan is witnessing an unabated terrorism cycle—having experienced a suicide bombing or a bomb blast each day since the July 10 military operation against the mosque. Tragically, those who died in the Red Mosque operation are now being proclaimed as shaheed (martyrs), and a debate has ensued in Pakistan between what the media are calling "religious extremists" and "liberal fascists." A week before the operation, ordinary Pakistanis were stunned that the government was not acting to resolve the crisis; today, a week after the deadly operation, Pakistanis still have few clues as to the new crisis that is unfolding. Furthermore, Musharraf's legacy seems frozen between these two weeks.

History of the Red Mosque and its Former Caretakers

The foundational stone of the Red Mosque was laid in 1965 by Maulana Abdullah—the father of the militant clerics Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi—a year after the birth of Pakistan's capital city, Islamabad. Maulana Abdullah, a Deobandi Muslim, was appointed as the mosque's imam by Pakistani President Ayub Khan (The News, July 8). The mosque was called "Lal" after Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, a revered Sufi saint buried in Pakistan's Sindh province.

During agitation led by religious parties against Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977, Abdullah successfully mobilized the masses in support of the protests. By virtue of this contribution, he gained the favor of General Zia ul-Haq, the military dictator who dislodged Bhutto. Zia's tenure was a key time for religious groups to expand, and Abdullah earned additional gratitude for volunteering in the Afghan war of 1979-1989. As a reward, he was allocated land in the prized and posh E-7 sector of Islamabad to establish Jamia Faridia, a seminary. Arab financing also helped Abdullah build an institution where many orphans and poor children received religious education (The News, July 17). Abdullah's agenda changed, however, as he became involved in sectarian politics and started to support the newly emerged Anjuman Sipah-e-Sahaba (Soldiers of the Prophet's Companions)—an anti-Shiite terror outfit. General Zia was hardly perturbed, as he was focused on the Afghan jihad and could not see how these fissures would destabilize Pakistan in the future.

In the process, Abdullah motivated thousands of people for jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and in collaboration with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) he continued to provide fodder for the Afghan theater. In 1989, he attracted the limelight when at the time of Benazir Bhutto's electoral success, he issued a fatwa declaring women's role in politics as un-Islamic. Around 1992, he established Jamia Hafsa, a seminary for women, adjacent to the Red Mosque. Funds were not an issue because the ISI was gracious toward him due to the role he had played in Afghanistan. His warm feelings toward Arab-Afghans also became obvious when, in response to the U.S. missile attack on a suspected Osama bin Laden hideout in Afghanistan, he said, "America is like a thief who attacked the unarmed civilians…[those] who make friends with Christians and Jews will become like them" (The Nation, August 22, 1998). Abdullah had just returned from Afghanistan and had started to campaign for the enforcement of Sharia in Pakistan. In his attempts, he crossed a few lines, resulting in his assassination at the Red Mosque in 1998.

This was a moment of transformation for his son Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who had been uninterested in all radical issues up to that point. Ghazi had an interesting background. He had earlier refused to enroll himself in Jamia Faridia and completed his masters in history in 1988 from the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, a reputable academic center. Afterwards, he joined the Ministry of Education in Islamabad as an officer, and later he served in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as an assistant director. At no stage in his career did he show any signs of extremism (Daily Times, July 8). Rather, he married into a modern family and was comfortable in his relatively secular lifestyle. In fact, his father was so angry with his lifestyle that he handed over all his property to his other son, Abdul Aziz. At the time of Abdullah's assassination, this same elder brother became the imam of the Red Mosque.

Developments, however, changed drastically after Abdullah's assassination. Ghazi decided to join his brother as his deputy in the Red Mosque. In about a year, he became a hard line cleric, vowing to impose a Talibanized Sharia in Pakistan. Pakistani intelligence agencies had also found a new agent who was willing to offer cooperation (Daily Times, July 8). Within walking distance of ISI headquarters, the Red Mosque complex attracted many heroes from the Afghan theater of conflict. It was understandable when the two brothers took a strong pro-Taliban stance and called Musharraf a traitor for his policy of cooperation with the United States in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Intriguingly, the state also overlooked the Red Mosque's potential threat when it showed its street power for the first time in 2003, by organizing riots in the capital city after the killing of Azam Tariq, the leader of the now banned Sipah-e-Sahaba. The seminary students of Jamia Faridia ransacked cinemas, restaurants and gas stations in the capital, yet Musharraf's government remained silent.

Encouraged by this response, the Red Mosque issued a controversial edict in 2004, declaring that Pakistani Army soldiers who died fighting tribal militants were not martyrs. News about Ghazi's links with al-Qaeda was flashed in the media at the time of the arrest of Osama bin Laden's driver (Dawn, July 6). The government was unmoved even by this development.

The final episode of the drama began earlier this year, when female students of Jamia Hafsa forcefully took control of a children's library adjacent to the Red Mosque complex and started vigilante actions in the city, trying to enforce their version of religious morality. Music shops were attacked, police were kidnapped and fatwas were issued to coerce the media. The government finally reacted and started negotiating with the Red Mosque administration, but to no avail. Abdul Aziz meanwhile threatened the government with a spate of suicide bombings around the country in the case of a military operation (Terrorism Focus, June 5).

Finally, both brothers forced the government's hand when they mishandled the soldiers of a paramilitary force surrounding the complex, leading to the deaths of 21 people on July 3. Abdul Aziz was caught fleeing the scene in a burqa and Ghazi took over the command of the complex. Around 1,200 students of the mosque and seminary surrendered, and those inside took up positions with their arms. Even then, the government procrastinated. People were upset at this turn of events while newspapers, electronic media and civil society groups all encouraged the government to enforce its writ. One could understand why it would be difficult to do the same in the tribal belt, but failing to do so in the heart of Islamabad was incomprehensible. Leading columnist Ayaz Amir aptly called it "a drama to beat all dramas" (Dawn, July 6).

Delay in effectively tackling the defiant stance of the Red Mosque not only complicated the crisis, but gave ample opportunity to Ghazi to entrench his forces militarily, start an effective media campaign and draw sympathy from segments of society by claiming that he and his comrades were merely asking for the enforcement of religious laws in the country.

Meanwhile, the government began claiming that Ghazi had many militants from various banned outfits holed up inside the complex who had taken hundreds of women and children hostage. Public opinion started to change, and demands for ensuring the safety of women and children were heightened. In the midst of this, Pakistani security forces suddenly began the operation, which lasted for the next 15 hours. Ghazi, with an ample supply of cell phones, gave last minute interviews to all major news channels, telling millions of people on live television that he bravely decided to lay down his life for the cause of Islam rather than bow to the dictates of the state. He called Musharraf a tool in the hands of the United States.

On the other hand, the government blocked the media from showing footage in the hospitals where casualties were taken. Journalists were only allowed to show ambulances rushing to the scene. Apparently, very few came out alive and it is unclear how many were killed inside the mosque complex. The government's figure of 100 dead (including 10 soldiers) leaves a few hundred unaccounted for. Graves were hastily dug around Islamabad, and people were buried at night, which encouraged rumors of a massacre and a cover up.

At the end of the day, Ghazi's stature rose in the eyes of the people, and the government's credibility collapsed further due to the way that they handled the issue—first with delay, then in getting bogged down in unnecessary negotiations, and finally in the inability to explain why its intelligence agencies failed to monitor what was transpiring inside the mosque complex for so long. The government has not explained its actions regarding why Ghazi and his brother were not stopped previously when they had challenged the government's policies so persistently. Critics believe that the two brothers were, in fact, being supported in their endeavors by elements within the intelligence agencies.

The Consequences

Since the July 10 operation, more than 100 people have lost their lives in bombings and suicide attacks in various parts of the country, including in Islamabad. Clearly, these strikes are revenge attacks—a deadly response from the sympathizers of the Red Mosque. Few in Islamabad realize that there are 88 more seminaries in Islamabad where 16,000 students are enrolled (Daily Times, July 7).

If developments in the last two weeks are any indicator, Pakistan is increasingly becoming an ungovernable state. Divisions within society about the direction of the state are becoming intense and if this confusion and cycle of violence continues, then cracks might appear within the military establishment as well. As before, Musharraf is making all the right statements, but implementation of his policies remains an acute issue. He is becoming increasingly unable to arrest developments inside Pakistan.

What was behind Al-Zawahiri's Latest Message?

Is Zawahiri Striving for Islamist Unity in Preparation for New Attack?
07/17/2007 - By Michael Scheuer (from Terrorism Focus, July 17) -

When Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he had a "gut feeling" that the United States faces an increased chance of a domestic terrorist attack in the months ahead, he brought into sharp relief the fact that al-Qaeda has been working since 2001 to prepare Islamist organizations to take advantage of its next U.S. attack. Given al-Qaeda's own statements, Chertoff's sense of timing is roughly in the ballpark. Senior al-Qaeda lieutenant Sayf al-Adel has written that after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, al-Qaeda and the Taliban estimated that the Taliban would return to power in Afghanistan in about seven years, and that its return would be accomplished as part of and "in harmony with a well-examined plan that will defeat the Americans and their supporters" [1]. This coming October will mark the sixth of those seven years and that fact might well bestir Chertoff's "gut." Another hint that al-Qaeda's pre-U.S.-attack phase may be winding down is found in the intense emphasis the group's deputy commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has put on promoting unity among jihadi groups—Sunni and Shiites—since mid-2005. Disunity is particularly dangerous at this time, al-Zawahiri warned on July 4, because at "the stage preceding victory…there is most [often] seen an increase in conspiracies, plots and inciting of discord, in an attempt by the enemy, who has begun to see his defeat approach, to push back and delay the defeat as much as he can" [2]. Al-Zawahiri first firmly established this theme in a July 2005 letter to the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then al-Qaeda's commander in Iraq. Warning al-Zarqawi "that things may develop faster than we imagine" in regard to the defeat and exit of U.S.-led forces in Iraq, al-Zawahiri explained that the mujahideen must be united and ready to fill any political void. Al-Zawahiri said that "the mistake of the Taliban" in not expanding participation in their government must be recalled and avoided by all Islamist groups. When the mujahideen take over in Iraq or elsewhere, al-Zawahiri wrote, insurgent leaders must direct political as well as military action "by [working for] alliance, cooperation and gathering of all leaders of opinion in the Iraqi arena." Al-Zawahiri pointedly noted that this meant Shiite-Sunni cooperation and not just intra-Sunni unity [3].

Worthy of a parenthetical digression is the question of what al-Zawahiri's letter to al-Zarqawi and his consistent subsequent emphasis on unity among all mujahideen groups—Sunni and Shiites—means vis-a-vis the veracity of claims by Western officials and media that Al-Qaeda in Iraq is the driving force of the Sunni vs. Shiite violence there. In each of the statements by al-Zawahiri under consideration in this article, al-Zawahiri has urged unity of all mujahideen and on several occasions has stressed that the most iconic figures of Shiite Islam—Imam Ali, and his sons Hasan and Husyan—would be demanding such cross-sect unity at this time [4]. In addition, since al-Zarqawi's death, al-Qaeda's new leader in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, has said virtually nothing that could be regarded as gratuitously anti-Shiite, thereby implementing the advice al-Zarqawi refused to accept. Finally, bin Laden has consistently stressed that Sunnis must not seek a final score-settling with the Shiites—unless they or some Sunnis aid the U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan and thereby become killable apostates—until after the United States is driven as far as possible from the Middle East and the incumbent Arab regimes and Israel are destroyed. Therefore, based on the combination of the documentary record and bin Laden's oft-stated and seemingly ironclad strategic priorities, it seems exceedingly unlikely that al-Qaeda is the driving—or even a major—force fomenting Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq

As noted, al-Zarqawi continued to push for unity after his letter to al-Zarqawi, and in the last six months he has markedly increased his focus on the issue in his media messages, moving beyond the Iraqi theater and addressing Sunni and Shiite Islamist groups worldwide. In speaking to Islamist fighters in Palestine, Algeria, Sudan, Kurdistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt, Philippines, Kashmir, Chechnya, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Somalia, al-Zawahiri said that without unity Muslims would only be able to live "on the margins of the New World Order…under the control of the arrogant enemies of Islam, dishonored, humiliated, plundered and occupied, with them meddling in your beliefs and true religion." In such a condition, al-Zawahiri concluded, the Muslim world would be subject to "bombing, destruction, torture, occupation, abuse and infringement…not eligible for human rights, due to it being a species of animal which has attacked its Western masters." To prevail, al-Zawahiri argues, Muslims must understand that the U.S.-led West only fears war and that only the united mujahideen will "intimidate" the West. Without unity, no one in "the Islamic world [will] gain their freedom because lambs have no place in the middle of a world of wolves" [5].

In addition to playing down sectarian differences, al-Zawahiri has tried to breakdown inter-group barriers that derive from each group's pride and concern for its organizational independence and sovereignty. He has, for example, made a point of not specifically speaking to Abu Hamza al-Muhajir's Al-Qaeda in Iraq when addressing the Iraqi resistance, but rather addressing "the amir of the Islamic State of Iraq, the Mujahid Sheikh Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, and all the groups of the champion mujahideen engaged in jihad in defense of Iraq and the caliphate. And I call on them to unite and be as one in accordance with the command of Allah, the most high and glorious, and his messenger, peace be upon him" [6]. In doing so, al-Zawahiri has begun to ease the anger generated among Iraqis by al-Zarqawi's blatant attempt to impose non-Iraqi leadership on the Iraqi insurgency.

Further afield, al-Zawahiri has delivered the same message of unity time and again, explaining that Islamist groups must aim only at making God's word the most high, and that they cannot be regarded as legitimate if they are merely the agents of personal, sectarian, or nationalist aspirations. Muslims must not be "restrained by the shackles of organizations and foundations from entering the fields of battle," he explains. "We must destroy every shackle which stands between us and our performing his personal duty. The reason for joining the Islamic organizations and foundation is to attain obedience to Allah, so if these organizations become an obstacle to performing Allah's obligations, then we must free ourselves from their shackles and confinement" [7].

He further states: "As for the point of view of doctrine and Islam, the Muslim umma and its mujahid vanguard do not make alliances and hold animosities on the basis of tribalism and nationalism, nor to help the Arabs against the Persians, or the Kurds against the Arabs, or the Amazight against the Arabs. Rather, Islam commands us to fight for Allah's word to be supreme. We ally ourselves to the helpers of Islam, even if they be Afghans, Persians, Turks or Kurds, and we are hostile to its enemies who collude with the Crusaders and Jews, even if they are pure-blooded Hashemite, Qurayshite Arabs…I ask my Muslim bothers in general and the callers and the mujahideen and their media organizations in particular to highlight the concept of Islamic brotherhood and disown all partisanship, loyalties, and animosities based on nationalism, and I ask them not to allow the wrongdoing of a faction or entity to motivate to speak evil of that party's entire people or race" [8].

"And I think these are the emotions [toward unity] of all mujahideen in Iraq—and indeed, in all lands of Islam—toward each other, even if their opinions and judgments differ," al-Zawahiri continues. "But the thing which I want to emphasize is that we must strengthen one another, and guide one another, and advise and instruct our brothers, even if we differ with them, and that we must study how to take the upright middle path, in order to make use of and benefit from every achievement by our mujahid bothers and develop and support it with brotherly affinity, faith-based love, doctrinal brotherhood and jihadi companionship, even if we see in it shortcomings or something less than perfection…Thus, the mujahideen must solve their problems among themselves…And I don't see any benefit for them in making public the problems of the mujahideen for all to see. In fact, I believe that its harm is much greater than its good" [9].

Clearly, al-Zawahiri has focused on promoting worldwide Islamist unity more in recent months than at any other time since the September 11 attacks. Yet making the effort does not guarantee success, and measuring the progress he has made is most difficult. One possible measure is the more than 40 Islamist groups that have pledged fealty to al-Qaeda's philosophy and leadership in the past several years (Terrorism Focus, April 3). Another may be the independent cells that have been caught and dismantled since 2005 in Australia, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, each of which was found—after their disruption—to have been inspired by bin Laden's leadership and al-Qaeda's actions and propaganda.

Whatever the true measure of al-Zawahiri's success, it seems clear that he and bin Laden want the broadest possible degree of Islamist unity to be in place before the next attack, using al-Qaeda's core organization to apply what al-Zawahiri has described as "the new theory which al-Qaeda brought with it," which is "confrontation with the central states, comprising the United States and Europe…by taking the war from the outlying states [in the Muslim world] to the central states, in which case the damage and consequences of this damage will take place in the central states" [10]. It is impossible to know whether al-Qaeda's leaders are satisfied that enough unity has been achieved to attempt another attack in the United States, but the demonstrable progress toward greater unity they have made, together with the U.S. government's assessment that al-Qaeda core is as strong as it was on September 11, suggests that Chertoff's "gut" may have good reason to be astir.

Michael Scheuer served as the Chief of the bin Laden Unit at the CIA's Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is now a Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation.

Notes

1. Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, New York, Free Press, 2006, p. 356.
2. Ayman al-Zawahiri, "The Advice of One Concerned," July 4, 2007.
3. Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, July 9, 2005, http://www.dni.gov, October 11, 2005. Al-Zawahiri's mention of the Taliban's problem in consolidating power in Afghanistan is often teamed by him and bin Laden by pointing to the example of the even greater failure of the Afghan insurgents of the anti-Soviet jihad era to consolidate power and prevent civil war after the Red Army withdrew.
4. The dates of the al-Zawahiri statements reviewed for this article are: July 9, 2005; December 21, 2006; December 30, 2006; January 5, 2007; January 22, 2007; February 13, 2007; March 12, 2007; May 5, 2007; May 23, 2007; July 4, 2007; July 10, 2007; and July 11, 2007. The transcripts used in this article were published by IntelCenter. In regard to al-Zawahiri's statements toward Imam Ali and his sons Hasan and Husyan, on December 21, 2006 he described each of the latter two men as "our chief," while on May 5, 2007 he termed all three "our masters." Furthermore, al-Qaeda's leaders also publicly supported Lebanon's Shiite organization Hezbollah during the latter's 2006 war with Israel and urged all Sunni Islamists to do likewise.
5. Ayman al-Zawahiri, "Realities of the Conflict Between Islam and Disbelief," December 21, 2006; Ayman al-Zawahiri, "Congratulations on the Eid to the Ummah of Tawhid," December 30, 2006; and Ayman al-Zawahiri, "Rise up and Support Your Brothers in Somalia," January 5, 2007.
6. Ayman al-Zawahiri, "Congratulations on the Eid to the Ummah of Tawhid," December 30, 2006.
7. Ayman al-Zawahiri, "Statement on President Bush's Surge," January 22, 2007.
8. Ayman al-Zawahiri, "Lessons, Examples, and Great Events in the Year 1427," February 13, 2007.
9. Ayman al-Zawahiri, "The Advice of One Concerned," July 4, 2007.
10. Ayman al-Zawahiri, "The Advice of One Concerned," July 4, 2007.

NATO Strikes in Pakistan's Tribal Areas

NATO Strikes Taliban Militants in Pakistani Territory
Terrorism Focus, Volume 4, Issue 20 (June 26, 2007), Jamestown Foundation
By Hassan Abbas

The covert understanding between the Pakistani government and NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan regarding direct U.S. military action in Pakistan's tribal areas is hardly a secret anymore. Officially, the Pakistani government forbids foreign troops from conducting military operations on its soil, whereas in reality many U.S. missile attacks are coordinated with Pakistan beforehand. At times, it appears that the United States acts without informing Pakistan, but the Pakistani government always claims otherwise in order to protect its domestic credibility (The News, June 20). The unraveling of this relationship could not have occurred at a worse time for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, as he currently faces the toughest challenge of his presidency in the shape of growing political unrest in the country. Two aerial attacks last week in Pakistan's Waziristan region illustrate the complexities involved in fighting the Taliban insurgency.

On June 19, about two dozen people were killed when a missile hit a madrassa in Datakhel area of North Waziristan agency (Dawn, June 20). Pakistani Army spokesperson Major General Waheed Arshad was quick to declare that "a group of militants were making explosives and there was an explosion," giving the impression that it was an accident at a terrorist training facility. The coalition spokesman in Kabul, Colonel David Accetta, confirmed that "we have no indications that we have fired anything across the border into Pakistan." In a matter of hours, however, it became obvious from press reports that a missile strike had occurred.

The second incident occurred on June 24 near the shared border. NATO spokespersons confirmed that their forces unknowingly tracked rebels into Pakistani territory and killed more than 10 civilians. While apologizing for the loss of innocent lives, a NATO spokesperson clearly maintained that "the strikes had been carried out in coordination with the Pakistani military" (The News, June 25). Pakistan quickly denied this, but few are ready to believe it—this is most likely a reflection of diminishing public trust in Musharraf's government.

Demonstrating Musharraf's domestic struggles, two mullahs allegedly aligned with Musharraf and the military delivered synchronized statements after these attacks. Maulana Abdul Aziz, of Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), who has lately made a name for himself through daytime kidnappings, asked the youth of the country to prepare for jihad, and he also called on the government to be mindful of Islamic honor and give up its cooperation with the United States (Khabrain, June 25). Maulana Fazlur Rahman of Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islam took a similar line (Khabrain, June 25). A notable Waziri tribal elder, Malik Sher Khan, however, offered a more independent view when he blamed the Pakistani government for its dual policies in the tribal region and accused it of supporting pro-Taliban groups for its political agenda (Frontier Post, June 25).

The positions of Musharraf and of NATO are divergent. If Pakistan and NATO cannot coordinate basic official statements, what can be expected of them in terms of joint military operations and cooperation vis-à-vis intelligence sharing and sensitivity to each other's core concerns? Taliban ascendance and their expansionist designs are too serious of a matter to be left to military commanders in the field. A political dialogue involving all major stakeholders in the area might open new avenues to fight this growing problem and help develop levels of trust between Pakistani and NATO forces.

Is Iran Helping Taliban - Quite Unlikely

Backgrounder: Is Iran Abetting the Taliban?
By LIONEL BEEHNER: New York Times, June 11, 2007
(An updated version available on Council on Foreign Relations's website)

Introduction

U.S. officials say they have found evidence that Iran has supplied weapons to Taliban rebels operating along the Afghan-Pakistani border. This has prompted questions about why majority Shiite Iran would support a Sunni-led force it has opposed for more than a decade. But some experts say there are a number of reasons why a strengthened Taliban would serve Iran’s interests, particularly in keeping U.S. forces off balance, as well as potentially deflecting pressure over its nuclear program. Historical tensions complicate relations between Iran and Afghanistan, but their commercial and cultural ties have developed since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban. Reports of aid to the Taliban suggest that different elements within Iran’s government may be pursuing dual-track policies in Afghanistan.

What is Iran's alleged military involvement in Afghanistan?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates alleged on June 5 that Iranian-made weapons, including Tehran’s signature roadside bomb—the explosively formed penetrator (EFP)—as well as AK-47s, C-4 plastic explosives, and mortars have been found in Afghanistan and used by Taliban-led insurgents in recent months. Gates said deliveries of Iranian weapons to Taliban forces were made but he did not accuse the highest levels of the Iranian government of signing off on the shipments. U.S. officials are concerned because Taliban forces increasingly use more sophisticated weaponry and mimic the style of suicide attacks popular among insurgents in Iraq. Iran also stands accused of offering sanctuary to opponents of the Afghan government and violating Afghan airspace. Iranian officials deny the charges.

But experts disagree whether the Iranian government is directly involved. Some say the weapons could have been smuggled into Afghanistan via various third-party channels. Others suggest they are being supplied by hard-line components within the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which has a separate agenda from the Iranian foreign ministry, which in turn has a separate agenda from Iran’s business community. “We’re talking about rogue elements,” says Col. Christopher Langton, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, “maybe even cross-border organizational criminal groupings.” He adds that arms factories in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province make copies of those weapons made in Iran.

Why would Tehran help the Taliban?

Experts say a strengthened Taliban would benefit Tehran in a number of ways. Peter Tomsen, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, says a weakened Afghan state lessens the likelihood it can become a U.S. ally against Iran. By maintaining a certain level of instability, he says, “it keeps us tied down. After all, we have airbases in Afghanistan where we could mount attacks on Iran.” Some analysts call it “managed chaos,” a strategy they say is similar to the one Iran employs in Iraq. Abetting the Taliban also boosts Iran’s leverage at a time when it is under pressure to end its uranium-enrichment program. “It’s saying, ‘If you push us on the nuclear issue, we can make life hell for you not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan,’” says Amin Tarzi, an Afghan expert at Radio Free Liberty/Radio Liberty.

In Iraq, Iran has clearly thrown its support behind majority Shiites against Sunni forces but it has backed Sunni groups elsewhere. W. Abbas Samii, a research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, says Tehran has supplied funding and weaponry to Palestinian Sunni groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. “For Iran, this is a strategic and military issue, not a theological debate,” says Samii. Ray Takeyh, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes in his book, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic: “[F]or Tehran the issue in Afghanistan has not been ideological conformity but stability.” Iran has long supported Sunni Tajik and Pashtun opposition groups there. “If you look at the roulette table, Iran is putting money on a many different numbers in Afghanistan,” says Tarzi.

Does Iran favor a return of Taliban rule?

No. The mullahs in Iran and the Taliban leadership have never gotten along. “I’m quite sure Iran does not want a return of Taliban-style rule on its border, which would bring, in addition to Pakistan, another adversarial state,” says Col. Langton. Iran remains suspicious of the Taliban’s ties to Pakistan and, in response, has cultivated stronger ties to India, which includes building a road linking the two states and inking a number of energy deals with Indian firms. Yet Iran also has exploited the current rift between Kabul and Islamabad by enhancing trade links with Afghanistan. “This reality limits Washington’s option to pressure Tehran since if Iran blocks the border, the Afghan economy could collapse,” writes Mohammed Tahir in the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

What are Iran's ultimate interests in Afghanistan?

U.S., NATO, and UN officials have all noted Tehran’s support of the current government in Kabul. A number of experts stress that Iran wants stability and prosperity on its eastern doorstep for commercial and trade reasons. That explains why Iran has been such a large donor—giving about $600 million since 2001, according to its foreign ministry—for various reconstruction projects. Iran also wants its population of about 900,000 Afghan refugees, who have aggravated tensions among Iranians by competing for scarce jobs, to one day return to their homeland. Over 850,000 have been repatriated since 2002 but the pace of return has slowed in recent years. Finally, Tehran has sought to curb the flow of opium across the Afghan border, which has generated a drug abuse crisis in Iran; an estimated two million Iranians are drug addicts. “It’s a sensible decision on the part of Tehran if Afghanistan is rebuilt and becomes a normal autonomous state so that all the refugees can go home and the flow of narcotics ends,” says Samii.

How have recent Iranian-Afghan relations evolved?

Iran has close linguistic and cultural ties to Afghanistan, particularly with Dari-speaking Shiite groups in Herat province and central Afghanistan. Tehran opened its borders to hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees during the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s and later in the 1990s worked with various mujahideen groups, including the Northern Alliance, to undermine Soviet influence and later Taliban rule. After the Taliban took power in 1996, Iran’s Supreme Leader denounced the Taliban as an affront to Islam, and the killing of eleven Iranian diplomats and truck drivers in 1998 by what Langton calls “rogue” Taliban elements almost triggered a military conflict. Iran worked with Western countries as part of the Six-Plus-Two framework on Afghanistan and also at the Bonn Conference after 9/11 to cobble together a post-Taliban system of government. Tehran normalized relations with the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai, even while hard-line elements within the Iranian leadership have sought to destabilize Afghanistan, says the Center for Naval Analyses’ Samii.

But Iran’s influence has also bred resentment among some local Afghans. Takeyh writes: “The fiercely independent Afghan tribes have historically resisted Persian encroachment and have jealously guarded their rights.”

Politics of Hezbollah

Hezbollah Reacts to Israel's Winograd Report
By Chris Zambelis
Terrorism Focus: Jamestown Foundation; May 8, 2007

Israel's recent release of the preliminary findings of the Winograd Commission, an independent government-appointed initiative led by former judge Eliyahu Winograd that was convened to investigate Israel's failures in its summer 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, may spell the political demise of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (Haaretz, May 1). In contrast, Hezbollah was quick to use the findings of the report to bolster its claims of victory over the vastly superior Israeli military and to criticize the Lebanese government's handling of the conflict. Hezbollah also harnessed the opportunity to enhance its Lebanese and Arab nationalist credentials and claims to represent a force for legitimate resistance in the face of growing pressure from Israel and Sunni-led regimes closely aligned with the United States. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, among others, label the group as a destabilizing force and an instrument of Iranian Shiite militancy.

In a May 2 statement at the second annual Arab and International Book Fair hosted by the Education Association "Islamic Maaref" in Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, an impoverished area populated primarily by Shiite Muslims and a bastion of Hezbollah support, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah went so far as to praise Israel for acknowledging what the Winograd Commission labels as its numerous "failures": "It is worthy of respect that an investigative commission appointed by Olmert condemns Olmert…We respect that political and popular powers swiftly moved to save their country, while unfortunately in Lebanon, neither an investigation was made nor a probing panel was formed…The Winograd Commission was faithful to 'Israel's' existence, they are ready to sacrifice one hundred Olmerts for [Israel's] survival" (http://www.moqawama.org).

Nasrallah also used the opportunity to juxtapose Israel's Winograd Commission with the reaction of Lebanese and regional Arab leaders to last summer's crisis. He highlighted the disconnect between the majority of Arabs and Muslims who view Hezbollah in a favorable light and a source of pride and their ruling regimes who perceive the group as a threat: "They [Israel] study their defeat in order to learn from it…Sadly, we wait for an 'Israeli' commission to tell us we have won." He used the occasion of the book fair to criticize regional governments for their incompetence and lack of accountability and to praise the virtues of education, knowledge and free thought as key pillars of popular resistance and independence: "When there is an independent people, independent in their thought, will and ability to survive…they can be their own masters and they can be free…We have become the richest nation in the world, yet the most illiterate, subordinate and ignorant nation at a time when we have every resource we need" (http://www.moqawama.org).

Despite reports of a growing Sunni-Shiite sectarian divide in the Middle East and anti-Shiite sentiments among the most extreme fringes of Sunni militancy, the majority of Arab and Sunni Muslim public opinion holds Hezbollah in high esteem for its successful struggle against Israeli occupation in the past and impressive performance on the battlefield during the 2006 war. Hezbollah is also widely viewed as a Lebanese and Arab nationalist force, regardless of its Shiite Islamist pedigree and ties to Iran. In contrast, incumbent U.S.-backed autocratic regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia fear Hezbollah's ability to galvanize local populations and inspire dissent among those opposed to their rule. By praising Israel's decision to scrutinize the performance of its leadership publicly, Nasrallah is in effect highlighting the shortcomings of the incumbent leaders in Beirut, Cairo, Amman and Riyadh. This bolsters the group's standing among Arabs and Muslims across the region, as well as in the context of Lebanon's ongoing internal political struggle.

Pakistan's Volatile North-West Frontier: Summary of a D.C. Event

Pakistan's Volatile North-West Frontier: Pashtun Tribes, Taliban, and al-Qaeda
Washington, DC: December 14, 2006

Event Summary
Speakers:
Hassan Abbas, Fellow, Harvard's JFK School of Government
Michael Scheuer, Senior Fellow, The Jamestown Foundation

Summary:

On December 14, The Jamestown Foundation hosted an event featuring Hassan Abbas, a fellow at Harvard's JFK School of Government, and Michael Scheuer, a senior fellow at The Jamestown Foundation and the former chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit. More than 90 guests attended the conference, which was titled Pakistan's Volatile North-West Frontier: Pashtun Tribes, Taliban, and al-Qaeda.

Hassan Abbas, who is a former Sub-Divisional Police Chief in the NWFP and former Deputy Director of Investigations in Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau from 1999-2000, began the conference by highlighting some critical issues affecting stability in Pakistan and Afghanistan:

Pakistan and Afghanistan have reached an unprecedented level of tension over the border. Musharraf is dangerously close to losing control of the tribal regions. The traditional tribal maliks, a cornerstone in governing the tribal belt, are being assassinated in growing numbers. NWFP Governor Orakzai, who was appointed by Musharraf, has lost credibility with his own people, the Pashtuns, as a result of the recent Bajaur Agency airstrike. Foreign aid to Pakistan is not reaching the tribal areas. Musharraf faces increasing pressure from the Pashtun element in the military.

Before analyzing these issues, Mr. Abbas presented a detailed overview of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the NWFP:

Wahhabi and Deobandi influences are strong in the tribal regions, but especially so in North and South Waziristan. There are approximately 60 major Pashtun tribes, yet more than 400 sub-clans. The Pashtuns in the tribal belt profit from trading, tracking, trucking and trafficking. Education levels are low. The entire border region has been a rentier state historically. Pashtuns have not surrendered control of their territory to outside forces; nevertheless, they are prone to compromise. Suicide bombings were largely unheard of in the region until recently. Now, the number of suicide attacks has escalated significantly in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Durand Line, which separates Pakistan and Afghanistan, is long and twisted, making it very difficult to patrol. Despite there being some 186 check points on the Pakistan side of the border, human traffic continues to flow between the two states.

Mr. Abbas then outlined the current ground realities in the tribal regions. While Pakistan's writ in the tribal areas has always been minimal, the U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan exacerbated the problem. Islamabad's political agents in the tribal agencies are under constant threat of attack, and those accused of supporting the government are regularly killed. Extremist tendencies are on the rise in the tribal belt, and some of this has to do with al-Qaeda's influence. Tribal maliks are being killed at an unprecedented rate, with some 200 assassinated in the last two years. This has resulted in the elimination of the traditional tribal leadership.

In an especially revealing statement, Mr. Abbas explained a primary reason for the difficulty in controlling the tribal areas. While the Pakistani army is mainly composed of Punjabis, approximately 20-25 percent of it is Pashtun. Due to Pashtun culture, these Pashtun soldiers regularly take leave at their homes in the tribal regions, sometimes every two to three weeks. Here they are influenced by developments "back home," which pressures the Pakistani government to keep this section of the military satisfied. According to Mr. Abbas, this may be one reason why Musharraf has tried to establish peace deals in the tribal agencies.

Mr. Abbas then offered some solutions to alleviate the strain in the tribal areas:

Negotiate with Afghan and Pashtun leaders in tribal jirga format rather than round table discussions. Attempt to revitalize secular forces in the tribal areas, such as Asfandyar Wali Khan, the leader of the Awami National Party. Consider incorporating some of the tribal areas into the settled areas of the NWFP. Recognize that the military option has not worked. Oversee Pakistan's spending policies in the tribal areas since much of the foreign aid coming to Pakistan for this purpose is not evident on the ground. Increase infrastructure investment in Afghanistan in order to dull the draw that this conflict has on Pashtuns in the tribal belt. Allow journalists and human rights organizations into the tribal areas.

After Hassan Abbas' speech, Michael Scheuer examined al-Qaeda's involvement in FATA and the NWFP, the border areas in general, how intelligence gathering is accomplished on the Frontier and ways ahead. According to Mr. Scheuer, Osama bin Laden established bases and contacts in the border region throughout the 1980s, well before the creation of al-Qaeda. This influence originated when Abdullah Azzam and bin Laden created the Afghan Services Bureau to coordinate humanitarian and military operations in Afghanistan during the jihad against the Soviets. In the early 1980s, bin Laden developed a working relationship with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Pakistan Army. This relationship facilitated bin Laden's access to the border regions. During this time, bin Laden established ties with notorious Afghan figures, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Qazi Mohammad. It was these various ties that assisted Osama bin Laden and the core al-Qaeda leadership in their escape from Tora Bora in 2001.

Mr. Scheuer then explained how intelligence work in the border areas is conducted. The tribal areas present a formidable obstacle in acquiring intelligence since the Pashtuns are divided into various sub-tribes and are often at odds with each other. The society is very insular and Westerners are not welcome, making it difficult to insert Special Forces units into the region. While it is possible to recruit Pashtuns to assist outside forces in intelligence gathering, it is almost impossible to recruit a Pashtun that will condemn another Pashtun or even a non-Pashtun Muslim. Furthermore, after nearly three decades of conflict, the Pashtun brand of Islam has moved closer to the more conservative standard of the Middle East. Not only do Western intelligence services suffer from these factors, but Pakistan's own ISI and military also encounter the same problems. An even more basic dilemma is the topography of the region and the nature of the border--to this day, accurate maps are difficult to find, even for the intelligence services.

According to Mr. Scheuer, the outlook for the region is not positive. Karzai's government in Kabul is in a state of demise and is increasingly unpopular at home. Failure to secure the border will mean that Pashtun and al-Qaeda insurgents will continue to engage in attacks in Afghanistan and then use Pakistan as a rear base, remaining free from U.S. and NATO reprisals.

Founded in 1984, The Jamestown Foundation is an independent, non-partisan research institution dedicated to providing timely information concerning critical political and strategic developments in China, Russia, Eurasia and the Greater Middle East. Jamestown produces five periodic publications: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Terrorism Monitor, Terrorism Focus, Chechnya Weekly and China Brief. Jamestown research and analysis is available to the public free-of-charge via Jamestown's website.

Inside Chitral

Pakistan's Chitral District: A Refuge for al-Qaeda's Top Leadership?
By Hassan Abbas
Terrorism Focus - Jamestown Foundation
Volume 3, Issue 46 (November 28, 2006)

In the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders, security services continue to focus on Pakistan's Chitral district in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Chitral became a concern after the release of a bin Laden videotape from September 2003 in which trees native to the Chitrali mountain range were evident. Extensive search operations for the al-Qaeda leader and fellow operatives by Pakistani and U.S. forces were conducted in the area in February-March 2003 (Dawn, March 7, 2003). More recently, in May there were claims that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had established an office in Chitral to monitor militant activities in the district (The Nation, May 1). Other links to the district include Abu Khabaib, an Arab explosives expert who has been spotted several times in the hills of Chitral. He is known to have helped Sheikh Ahmed Saleem, an Arab member of al-Qaeda. Saleem has been giving money to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi for recruiting militants for al-Qaeda in Pakistan (Daily Times, October 2). Finally, because Chitral is adjacent to Afghanistan's Nuristan province, there is concern that Taliban and al-Qaeda militants are crossing the border between the two countries.

Chitral, with its rich cultural heritage and changing religio-political trends, is a fascinating area in the NWFP. It is caught between diverse traditions and rumors of al-Qaeda involvement. In the backdrop of the turmoil created by pro-Taliban elements in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area and the rising influence of religious political parties in the district, Chitral has become an important focus in the war on terrorism. For centuries, the people of Chitral have lived in relative isolation in their mountain kingdom. They have experienced various political phases, beginning with their involuntary association with the British Empire (1895), their voluntary association with the new state of Pakistan (1947) and finally their incorporation into Pakistan's NWFP (1969). The Katur dynasty that ruled the area collapsed in 1949-50, and the federal government of Pakistan took direct control of the Chitral administration.

Geographically, Chitral is bordered by Afghanistan in the north, south and west. A narrow strip of Afghan territory, the Wakhan strip, separates it from Tajikistan. It has always been a very important route for invaders on their way to South Asia, including Alexander the Great and the Mongols. The Chitral Valley, at an elevation of 1,100 meters, is popular with mountaineers, hunters, hikers and Western anthropologists. Imposing mountains dominate the landscape of Chitral, forging a rugged terrain that is home to approximately 325,000 people comprising an area of 243,818 acres. The topography of the district is varied, with 30% of the region covered in glaciers, snow-clad mountains, bare rock and barren ground, and with about 65% of the land supporting pastures with only sparse vegetation. Chitral is cut off from the rest of Pakistan during the winter. Sunnis compose 65% of Chitral, while Ismaili Shiites comprise 35% of the population. A small population of the non-Muslim Kailash community—known for their beautiful dresses and traditional dance—are based in the south of the district.

While located in a Pashtun region, the Chitrali people are ethnically different than Pashtuns. They are called Kho and their primary language is Khowar, although about 10 other languages are spoken in the area. One might expect that Pashto would be a natural choice as a second language for many Chitralis, but that is not the case. In fact, Chitralis dislike Pashtuns and their language. Their dislike is in part an outcome of economic factors—for instance, since 1979-80, a large number of Afghan refugees (predominantly Pashtuns) moved into the area and competed quite successfully with the local Chitrali businessmen. Business in the region is predominately agricultural.

Chitralis have a reputation for being civilized and peace-loving. Their folk singers are popular in various parts of Pakistan. There is a fairly sizeable seasonal migration of Chitrali men to Peshawar and to other cities of Pakistan for winter employment. Additionally, many have found employment in the Gulf States. Relations between Sunnis and Shiite Ismailis have been cordial historically, but have recently become more heated now that Wahhabis have more influence in the area.

In terms of political orientation, however, Chitral has been steadily becoming more conservative. For instance, its current representative in the National Assembly of Pakistan, Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali, belongs to Jamaat-e-Islami (part of the religious MMA alliance) and is a chief administrator of a seminary in Peshawar named Jamia Arabia Hadiqatul Uloom. Interestingly, he is best known for leading a mob that burned down the offices of the Frontier Post newspaper in Peshawar three years ago after it published a "Letter to the Editor" with controversial religious connotations.

More troubling signs emerged in late 2004 when the offices of a progressive Pakistani NGO, Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP), sponsored by Ismaili leader Prince Karim Aga Khan, were attacked by religious extremists. Developments came to a head on December 27, 2004 when two workers of the Aga Khan Health Services Office in Chitral were killed in a terrorist attack and four vehicles owned by the charity organization were destroyed. The culprits turned out to be two men associated with the declared terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has links to al-Qaeda (Dawn, January 5, 2005). In a December 29, 2004 Daily Times editorial titled "Chitral Trouble is Symptomatic of Deeper Malaise," the paper maintained that this development was an outcome of sectarianism and that "in Chitral, the Shiite-Sunni tension dates back to 1988 when the Northern Areas were attacked by Pashtun lashkars."

In conclusion, due to Chitral's location on the border with Afghanistan, elements of al-Qaeda may find refuge there. The mountains potentially provide a good cover. Yet, another potent factor has to be kept in perspective—because much of the district's population is not friendly to Pashtuns, they may be less willing than other areas of the NWFP to provide sanctuary. Pashtunwali has very limited appeal in this area and Ismaili Shiites (35% of the population) are anti-al-Qaeda to their core for sectarian reasons. Therefore, one can speculate that the al-Qaeda leadership may have passed through this area during their "travels" in the region, but are unlikely to consider Chitral a place where they can find safe refuge for a long period of time.