The Pakistan Taliban

By Jonathan Winer

The recent spate of suicide bombings in Pakistan are just one troubling aspect of what some are now terming "the Pakistan Taliban," a force that is exercising increasing influence throughout the country, and which by some accounts now controls North and South Waziristan.

President Musharraf today stated expressly that "Talibanization will not be tolerated in Pakistan," even as he acknowledged that it was spreading to the point where it had become "a dangerous epidemic."

This mirrored the testimony this week of Lt. General Karl W. Eikenberry, outgoing commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, who told the House Armed Services Committee in testimony on February 13 that the U.S. needed to carry out "steady and direct" attacks on the Taliban's sancturaries in North Waziristan and elsewhere in Pakistan, where refugee camps are incubating suicide bombers. His testimony also stated unequivocably that Al Qaeda, as well as Taliban forces, continued to retain sanctuary in ungoverned areas in Pakistan, threatening Afghan stability and our efforts to fight terrorism on a global basis.

The U.S. continues to appear to be hoping that President Musharraf's continued cooperation with the U.S. applauded in the public message delivered by Secretary of Defense Gates during his visit there this week, will make for a succcessful campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan during its anticipated spring offensive.

But while the Taliban continue to find safe haven in north west Pakistan, progress may be something of a chimera. As General Eikenberry testified, since September, when Pakistan signed a peace deal with tribesmen in North Waziristan, “the cross-border attacks have tripled,” and he expressly warned of the “growing threat of Talibanization” inside Pakistan.

The degree of collaboration between Pakistani offficials and the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the border areas is widely acknowledged, recently, even by President Musharraf, who recently promised to "fence off" the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan that have been a sieve for the movements of terrorists smuggling guns, drugs, and IEDs.

Separately, Pakistan has suggested that the solution to its domestic terrorist problem, especially in the border areas, is to deport some 2.4 million Afghani refugees from Pakistan within the next 24 months. This is as neat a solution as it is an impractical one.

Those optimistic about what continues to brew on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border may not wis to be reminded of the still trenchent aphorism of Oscar Wilde: "The good end happily and the bad end unhappily. That is what fiction means."

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