Daily Standard: Spinning the Fighting in South Waziristan

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

In late March Mullah Nazir, a tribal leader in South Waziristan who is aligned with the Taliban, launched attacks on foreign militants from Uzbekistan who were in the region. Predictably, the Pakistani government tried to portray this development as a victory for the failed Waziristan Accords: Pakistani interior minister Aftab Sherpao said the bloodshed was "the result of the agreements the government made with tribal people in which they pledged to expel foreigners and now they are doing it." Just as predictably, many Western journalists echoed Islamabad's spin, reporting that the tribes were trying to eject foreign militants from Pakistani soil.

But Pakistan's portrayal does not reflect the reality of the situation. In a new article in the Daily Standard, Bill Roggio and I set the record straight. An excerpt:

Islamabad's spin is implausible and, in fact, dangerous. This is an internal conflict fueled by tribal rivalries, the Uzbeks' murder of al Qaeda agents, a disagreement in strategic priorities, and land. It was the combination of these factors that gave Mullah Nazir the impetus to fight.

The first of these factors, an inter-Taliban power struggle, centers on the rivalry between Mullah Nazir and a Taliban commander known as Mullah Omar (but not the Mullah Omar). The two have been at odds since Mullah Nazir replaced Mullah Omar as head of the Ahmadzai tribe--both because of Mullah Nazir's usurpation and also preexisting clan rivalries.

The rivalry between the two men was inflamed when the Uzbeks, with whom Mullah Omar had aligned himself, killed Arab al Qaeda operative Saiful Asad. The Uzbeks also reportedly killed Sheikh Asadullah, a Saudi who was described as "the moneybags in the entire tribal belt," although it isn't known when this killing took place. Mullah Nazir was incensed by these killings, as both men were under his care when their lives were taken.

A third factor is that the Uzbeks had different strategic priorities than the local Taliban and their tribal allies. While the tribes are eager to engage U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the Uzbeks prefer to fight the "near enemy" rather than the "far enemy": they want to engage the Pakistani government. This worried the Taliban, backed by Mullah Nazir, because attacks on the government could draw unwanted attention. They figured that Pakistan's government might only turn a blind eye to jihadist violence if that violence focused outward on Afghanistan, Kashmir, or India--not on Pakistan itself.

You can read the whole article here.

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