Taliban: Peace pact with Pakistan is 'worthless'

[ajpirzada]

There should have never been a deal with these bastards and should be no deal now we should be the ones saying these lines its our country or land we should kill these cowards now and take our country back this gov needs to wake up GOD help us all.

i still support this deal. its not the gov which is the looser but the talibans. ppl who were previously thinkin that its gov which is only bent upon killing their own ppl on US orders have now seen wat happens when u make peace with them. GoP gave ppl wat they wanted. ppl said that taliban will lay down their arms once gov implements shariah. but then same ppl saw talibans not keepin their words. now y do u think situation on ground will still be the same?? it will be much different and you will see that in comin weeks. win the ppl and u win the war. i know many western countries will say 'didnt we tell u not to go for any such deal'. but to me thats not true. we are not back to square 1. we are close to being successful in isolating talibans

 

[Hellfire]

ajpirzada


i still support this deal. its not the gov which is the looser but the talibans.

a very optimistic view you have there. while in the short term the Talibs certainly have the losers draw, yet if in the coming weeks they can successfully operate against FC, then the advent of greater force will lead to higher collateral casualties amongst the local populance. I was seeing an interview of a tribal leader in Buner on Express TV and he said that it is the duty of his people to support Talibs against the army and army will not be allowed there. It sends real wrong signals now.

ppl who were previously thinkin that its gov which is only bent upon killing their own ppl on US orders have now seen wat happens when u make peace with them.

and they are fleeing the areas that GoP handed over to taliban on a platter in name of peace. so big deal!

GoP gave ppl wat they wanted. ppl said that taliban will lay down their arms once gov implements shariah. but then same ppl saw talibans not keepin their words. now y do u think situation on ground will still be the same?? it will be much different and you will see that in comin weeks. win the ppl and u win the war


again optimistic. let the confrontation spread and bodies fall then you shall see.

. i know many western countries will say 'didnt we tell u not to go for any such deal'. but to me thats not true. we are not back to square 1. we are close to being successful in isolating talibans


not square 1 but a full circle here. you have lost hold on three regions viz swat, buner and bajaur.

 

[ajpirzada]

ajpirzada


i still support this deal. its not the gov which is the looser but the talibans.

a very optimistic view you have there. while in the short term the Talibs certainly have the losers draw, yet if in the coming weeks they can successfully operate against FC, then the advent of greater force will lead to higher collateral casualties amongst the local populance. I was seeing an interview of a tribal leader in Buner on Express TV and he said that it is the duty of his people to support Talibs against the army and army will not be allowed there. It sends real wrong signals now.

ppl who were previously thinkin that its gov which is only bent upon killing their own ppl on US orders have now seen wat happens when u make peace with them.

and they are fleeing the areas that GoP handed over to taliban on a platter in name of peace. so big deal!

GoP gave ppl wat they wanted. ppl said that taliban will lay down their arms once gov implements shariah. but then same ppl saw talibans not keepin their words. now y do u think situation on ground will still be the same?? it will be much different and you will see that in comin weeks. win the ppl and u win the war


again optimistic. let the confrontation spread and bodies fall then you shall see.

. i know many western countries will say 'didnt we tell u not to go for any such deal'. but to me thats not true. we are not back to square 1. we are close to being successful in isolating talibans


not square 1 but a full circle here. you have lost hold on three regions viz swat, buner and bajaur.

i dont agree. in the short run talibans are the winner. in medium run it will be GoP. long run depends on many other factors. ur view is based on the assumption of if talibans overpower FC. so the question is will they? also there was no national consensus on wat to do with talibans in swat. now most of the political parties are callin for an operation against them (including the religious parties). and that only became possible after they saw talibans not keepin their word. now i guess u already know the importance of national consensus incase u r really interested in wining the war.

also ppl are fleein the area in fear of a military operation and not bec of wat u said (although i seriously disagree with the words u used but lets leave that to avoid stealin this thread)

tell me y will the ppl not support GoP when they ll see taliban not abiding by the agreement. dont just use 'u r being optemistic' to counter my argument.

also ppl in buner formed lashkar whom talibans have now started threatning. dont u think this goes against the Express tv eg u gave me. ill give more weight to lashkar(against taliban) than this only person sayin he wont let army enter the area.

even if u ignore everything, u still cant deny that now there is more resolve to fight against them. PML-N says sufi must make talibans to lay down their arms. Qazi hussain says that sufi cant do anything to pakistan. maulana fazlur rehman says that taliban should be handled with force. imran khan says sufi is goin against Quran. MQM already against talibans. Does this look lik a SQUARE 1 to u???

 

[muse]

An editorial for the Daily Times of today

First, we must have the will to fight the Taliban

The Interior Advisor, Rehman Malik, says an operation by the Frontier Corps and the Pakistan Army in Lower Dir has killed 30 militants, but maintains that the operation has nothing to with the Swat deal. In the next breath he also says, “If the militants do not lay down arms after the enforcement of Sharia laws in Swat, the security operation can be extended to other areas, including the valley”. The presidential spokesman in Islamabad says the Swat peace agreement is still intact, which is not what the TNSM spokesman says in Swat, calling the operation “a violation of the agreement”. Indeed, Sufi Muhammad, leader of the TNSM which signed the peace deal, says he is not on speaking terms with the government any more because of the action in Dir.

Everybody in Pakistan, including Imran Khan of Tehreek-e Insaf, says the Taliban have violated the agreement made by TNSM and that Sufi Muhammad has overstepped his mandate by dismissing the Constitution of Pakistan. In these conditions, if the operation in Dir is not the beginning of a larger strategy of dealing with the threat of the Taliban, it is bound to fail, adding to the suffering of the people. So far, this has been the pattern. The army has moved in, pushed the Taliban back a little, then decided to parley with the terrorists, giving them time to regroup and come back at it.

This attitude is already manifest in Malakand Division. An all-parties gathering in Buner, calling itself a jirga, has pre-emptively requested the government not to deploy troops there, not because all is well with Buner after a false announcement by the Taliban that they have withdrawn from it, but because the jirga elders are scared that the army will withdraw soon, leaving the locals at the mercy of the killers. They said the Taliban in Buner were now tamed and were not a threat. They meekly asked the Taliban who were present there to return the properties they had grabbed in the area. Even as they said this, the Taliban caught hold of four youths in Buner who were listening to music in their car, gave them a thrashing and shaved off half their heads and moustaches.

The Taliban are “interconnected” and will send reinforcements from one area of their domination to another. They have local Taliban whom they have trained, and they have a growing population of supporters who have been converted through fear and violence. The entire network covering FATA and Malakand has sound financial backing, paying for large amounts of expensive explosives when car-bombs are used; and supplying suicide-bombers, of whom there is a reserve of hundreds of boys. When the Taliban agree to a ceasefire anywhere, they want to gain time to put in motion the logistics of reinforcement. It is not a force that you can defeat in one area and hope that they will not return.

First, our establishment must have the will to fight the Taliban. From this will flow a strategy of fighting the war against Taliban. It has to be a comprehensive engagement with all combat and psychological aspects taken into account. Too much reliance on paramilitary force will be counterproductive because of its vulnerability to local reactions to the use of intimidatory violence. The army must decide to mobilise at a scale commensurate with the force of the enemy being engaged, with the capacity to look after people who will be displaced by conflict. After a period of benign neglect of the challenge of Taliban, the national army will have to act like all armies do when faced with such internal insurgencies, and face local resistance as all such armies do in such operations; but the loyalty-shift back to Pakistan will be quick if the terrorists are given no quarter.

One hopes that all this has been taken into consideration before the operation in Dir. The kind of action required should have needed consultations at the international level in order to have a clear understanding about how risky the mobilisation against the Taliban will be in relation to the army’s defence responsibilities with regard to India. This international assurance will have to come in the light of the alleged American threat that if the Pakistan Army will not sort out the mess in Swat an externally organised operation could be launched against the Taliban there. Therefore one hopes that Dir is not a routine operation with predictable results.

 

[Hellfire]

ajpirzada


i dont agree. in the short run talibans are the winner. in medium run it will be GoP. long run depends on many other factors

well I shall try and elaborate. bluntly speaking, you win a counter insurgency operation by dominating the local populance. any insurgency depends on local conditions to succour itself. while the support may not necessarily be voluntary in some cases, nevertheless it can be obtained at the point of a gun by the talibs as the region they are in is firmly under their sway.

while you may like to isolate the example I give, the fact is that the situation holds true as there seems to be a greater anti-government and pro-taliban attitudes in these areas (probably due to fear of being killed if no support is given). the main determinant of this action will be the force structure inducted and the way the campaign is conducted in this region. any employment of air assets in a built up area will definitely go a long way in alienating the people there. Talibs learned their lesson from Afghanistan well and this time will blend into the cities to operate (and avoid air power) and they are battle hardened and experienced, unlike FC which shall have to radically rework their SOPs to meet such challenges which requires time - something they wont have anymore.


also there was no national consensus on wat to do with talibans in swat. now most of the political parties are callin for an operation against them (including the religious parties). and that only became possible after they saw talibans not keepin their word. now i guess u already know the importance of national consensus incase u r really interested in wining the war.

i fully agree. decisive nature of government is needed and only now GoP seems to be coming around to the fact that they have to fight them and not appease them.

also ppl are fleein the area in fear of a military operation and not bec of wat u said (although i seriously disagree with the words u used but lets leave that to avoid stealin this thread)

there were quite a few women whose husbands had been killed by Talibs for stupidest of reasons and it was a group of these women and children which was shown in the report. Now this is not out of fear of military campaign but out of lack of Pakistani law in these areas. People just have no protection from "punishment" incase they dont agree with Talibs views.

tell me y will the ppl not support GoP when they ll see taliban not abiding by the agreement. dont just use 'u r being optemistic' to counter my argument.

while you are being optimistic, the fact remains that there is a large amount of sympathy for radical views in rural pakistan howsoever distasteful it may be for you. wait and see how the problem spreads to main cities in a couple of weeks until and unless GoP again conceeds to Taliban demands.

 

[Hellfire]

Contrary to what many of the posters from Pakistan on this site may hope, if and when the PA is inducted into a counter insurgency role, it shall be faced with a tough task in a long and bloody conflict.

The peace deal with the Talibs has given them enough time to regroup and rearm as also assess the terrain for upcoming conflict with the army/FC. These are battle hardened elements which have seen extensive operations in afghanistan and familiar with PA/FC SOPs having been trained by ex-PA pers under aegis of ISI previously.

In addition the local populance is further bolstering their ranks for whatever reasons and as such they have the advantage of terrain and area. PA shall be inducting troops into counter insurgency operations for the first time and against a much harder enemy. It shall have to adopt and rejig its units for this which shall take both time and lives as hard lessons will only be learnt from casualties sustained.

Add to that, the fragile nature of sympathies for these elements within certain ranks of PA will further complicate matters. In all a testing time ahead.

 

[ajpirzada]

ajpirzada


i dont agree. in the short run talibans are the winner. in medium run it will be GoP. long run depends on many other factors

well I shall try and elaborate. bluntly speaking, you win a counter insurgency operation by dominating the local populance. any insurgency depends on local conditions to succour itself. while the support may not necessarily be voluntary in some cases, nevertheless it can be obtained at the point of a gun by the talibs as the region they are in is firmly under their sway.

while you may like to isolate the example I give, the fact is that the situation holds true as there seems to be a greater anti-government and pro-taliban attitudes in these areas (probably due to fear of being killed if no support is given). the main determinant of this action will be the force structure inducted and the way the campaign is conducted in this region. any employment of air assets in a built up area will definitely go a long way in alienating the people there. Talibs learned their lesson from Afghanistan well and this time will blend into the cities to operate (and avoid air power) and they are battle hardened and experienced, unlike FC which shall have to radically rework their SOPs to meet such challenges which requires time - something they wont have anymore.


also there was no national consensus on wat to do with talibans in swat. now most of the political parties are callin for an operation against them (including the religious parties). and that only became possible after they saw talibans not keepin their word. now i guess u already know the importance of national consensus incase u r really interested in wining the war.

i fully agree. decisive nature of government is needed and only now GoP seems to be coming around to the fact that they have to fight them and not appease them.

also ppl are fleein the area in fear of a military operation and not bec of wat u said (although i seriously disagree with the words u used but lets leave that to avoid stealin this thread)

there were quite a few women whose husbands had been killed by Talibs for stupidest of reasons and it was a group of these women and children which was shown in the report. Now this is not out of fear of military campaign but out of lack of Pakistani law in these areas. People just have no protection from "punishment" incase they dont agree with Talibs views.

tell me y will the ppl not support GoP when they ll see taliban not abiding by the agreement. dont just use 'u r being optemistic' to counter my argument.

while you are being optimistic, the fact remains that there is a large amount of sympathy for radical views in rural pakistan howsoever distasteful it may be for you. wait and see how the problem spreads to main cities in a couple of weeks until and unless GoP again conceeds to Taliban demands.

what u r tellin me is y ppl sided with talibans. and i agree with some of the reasons u have given of which the most important one is the lact of strong gov writ. but the discussion over here is if swat deal was worthless?? u agreed with me that now there is greater national consensus or resolve to fight them which was lackin previously. this alone tells that the deal wasnt worthless.
second thing is isolating talibans at local level. now there are ppl who must be supporting talibans coz they promised to get them shariah, ppl who have learned to live with talibans coz gov is not there to protect them, ppl who are being threatened and then obviously some hard core talibans. now when u will lauch a military operation u will face two kinds of resistance. resistance from locals and resistance from talibans. only thing u can reduce is resistance from locals by givin them wat they want. although they wont come in open coz of the fear but definately they will not protest lik they did earlier.
now we have achieved two things. national consensus and hidden support amongst the locals (hidden support wont matter initialy but it will play a big role when talibans will be sent on back foot). next step is to go for military operation. even the army will have more resolve to fight such elements. previously more than half of the nation was sayin that army is killin her own countrymen. under such conditions y should we expect our soldiers to perform when they are not being seen as mujahids or martrys for which they joined the force. would u lik to give ur life when ur nation thinks that u r dyin for no gud??
now is the time for army to step fwd and prove its metal. gov has done wat it can to make it easy for the army to move in.