Aslan
SENIOR MEMBER
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- Sep 15, 2009
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DAWN.COM | Pakistan | The Taliban
Is Hakeemullah Mehsud dead? History suggests we must wait until we can know for sure: the TTP leader has risen from the ‘dead’ before. But two observations are in order. First, even if Hakeemullah has been killed, it does not mean the TTP will automatically collapse.
When Baitullah Mehsud was killed last August, there was much speculation about rifts within the TTP and whether it was possible to find a replacement leader as charismatic and deadly as Baitullah. But soon enough the talk of dissent died down and Hakeemullah rose to become a fearsome leader. True, Operation Rah-i-Nijat has deprived the TTP of its ‘centre of gravity’ in South Waziristan and caused its leadership to scatter, but the army itself acknowledges that counter-insurgency operations against the TTP must go on. The TTP is not a spent force yet.
The second point is for the Americans. While Pakistan has been blamed for making a good Taliban/bad Taliban distinction, the fact is the Americans have long had their own ‘order of preference’: the Afghan Taliban have been of more concern to the Americans than the Pakistani Taliban. So if the Pakistan Army’s distinction has been wrong and misguided (as it has been), so has the Americans’. It makes little sense for the Americans to tell Pakistan that there is no such thing as ‘good’ Taliban because all Taliban are the same when the Americans are themselves busy making distinctions according to their own agenda in the region.
The recent video showing Hakeemullah Mehsud seated next to the Jordanian suicide bomber who attacked a CIA base in Khost makes nonsense of the American claim that while the Pakistani state’s actions against the TTP are a ‘start’, the ‘real’ work against groups such as the Quetta shura and the Haqqani network is yet to begin.
Clearly, the Americans have extended some cooperation to Pakistan in the fight against the TTP: Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a drone strike, military equipment was rushed to Pakistan to aid its counter-insurgency operations over the last year and aerial surveillance has been shared. The problem though is the way the Americans and the Pakistani sides approach the Taliban problem: each is obsessed with only part of the Taliban ‘spectrum’ and looks at the rest as incidental to its concerns. But the distinctions are artificial and meaningless in many respects — there are only Taliban, and they need to be defeated.
Is Hakeemullah Mehsud dead? History suggests we must wait until we can know for sure: the TTP leader has risen from the ‘dead’ before. But two observations are in order. First, even if Hakeemullah has been killed, it does not mean the TTP will automatically collapse.
When Baitullah Mehsud was killed last August, there was much speculation about rifts within the TTP and whether it was possible to find a replacement leader as charismatic and deadly as Baitullah. But soon enough the talk of dissent died down and Hakeemullah rose to become a fearsome leader. True, Operation Rah-i-Nijat has deprived the TTP of its ‘centre of gravity’ in South Waziristan and caused its leadership to scatter, but the army itself acknowledges that counter-insurgency operations against the TTP must go on. The TTP is not a spent force yet.
The second point is for the Americans. While Pakistan has been blamed for making a good Taliban/bad Taliban distinction, the fact is the Americans have long had their own ‘order of preference’: the Afghan Taliban have been of more concern to the Americans than the Pakistani Taliban. So if the Pakistan Army’s distinction has been wrong and misguided (as it has been), so has the Americans’. It makes little sense for the Americans to tell Pakistan that there is no such thing as ‘good’ Taliban because all Taliban are the same when the Americans are themselves busy making distinctions according to their own agenda in the region.
The recent video showing Hakeemullah Mehsud seated next to the Jordanian suicide bomber who attacked a CIA base in Khost makes nonsense of the American claim that while the Pakistani state’s actions against the TTP are a ‘start’, the ‘real’ work against groups such as the Quetta shura and the Haqqani network is yet to begin.
Clearly, the Americans have extended some cooperation to Pakistan in the fight against the TTP: Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a drone strike, military equipment was rushed to Pakistan to aid its counter-insurgency operations over the last year and aerial surveillance has been shared. The problem though is the way the Americans and the Pakistani sides approach the Taliban problem: each is obsessed with only part of the Taliban ‘spectrum’ and looks at the rest as incidental to its concerns. But the distinctions are artificial and meaningless in many respects — there are only Taliban, and they need to be defeated.
