Vol. 72/No. 43      November 3, 2008

The White House has also been pushing a plan to send F-16 warplanes and other aviation equipment to support the Pakistani military’s intensifying war with Islamist militias inside the country. The Pakistani military held a first-ever briefing for parliament as part of the effort to win broader support for the war.

The intensifying war takes place in the midst of a deepening economic crisis in Pakistan.

Washington continues to carry out unilateral strikes of its own inside Pakistan. Nine people, including at least five civilians, were killed in the latest air strike by U.S. drone-fired missiles in the North Waziristan region October 9, according to the online English edition of Pakistan’s Daily Jang.

The attack leveled the home of Maulvi Sahar Gul, killing three women and two children. Sahar Gul, according to the Daily Jang, was affiliated with a faction inside the Tehrik-i-Taliban that is opposed to fighting the Pakistani government and instead focuses on fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan. A day after the U.S. strike, this faction announced its complete break with the Tehrik-i-Taliban, which is led by Baitullah Mehsud, whose forces have attacked the Pakistani military.

Islamabad has condemned U.S. attacks on Pakistani soil as fanning popular hatred and making it more difficult for Pakistan’s military to carry out its own counterinsurgency along the Afghan border. The Pakistani government criticized a substantial U.S. operation in September in which U.S. ground troops opened fire on a village in South Waziristan, killing at least 16 civilians.

The U.S. military has carried out at least 11 missile attacks on Pakistan along the Afghan border in the last month and a half alone. The attacks have killed dozens of civilians. A June 11 U.S. air strike killed 11 government border troops.

The Pakistani military began a major offensive in the Bajur region in August, which it says has killed more than 1,000 Islamist militiamen so far. Pakistani fighter planes bombed Islamists’ positions in mid- October, killing 60, according to a Pakistani military spokesman.

“We have used our air force for the first time, thereby diminishing the need for America to come into the Pakistani side and bomb,” Husain Haqqani, Pakistani ambassador to the United States, told Morton Kondracke, a Washington columnist.

Similar to what Washington did in Iraq, Islamabad has been successful in enlisting some local militias to fight groups allied with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. “We have a tribal awakening program whereby the tribes are being mobilized to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban,” Haqqani told Kondracke. According to Pakistani Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, Islamabad has enlisted nearly 10,000 militia from three different tribes.

A suicide car bomb killed at least 20 and injured 70 members of a tribal militia in the Orakzai region in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The meeting of some 500 was discussing plans to launch an assault on a nearby anti-government base.

The same day four tribal leaders allied with Islamabad were beheaded in Bajur. Nearly 190,000 people left the Bajur region since the offensive began two months ago, according to the United Nations.

In Afghanistan, Washington is looking for similar openings to train and equip tribal militias to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as train the Afghan regular army.

The Pakistan Peoples Party government of Asif Zardari has been trying to win broader support from other parties in Pakistan’s parliament for the country’s continued war against Islamist militias. The new government, which came to power this year, brought a measure of civilian rule following the end of the military dictatorship of close U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf.

In a break with past practice, military officials briefed members of parliament October 8 on the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Since July 2007, nearly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in suicide attacks across the country.

The debate on the war was ongoing as of October 20 as a number of members of parliament pressed for immediate peace negotiations with the Taliban.

Meanwhile the country is gripped in a severe economic crisis. In some of the tribal areas there is a severe shortage of food and electricity, a member of parliament said during the recent round of debates.

Inflation in Pakistan reached 25 percent this month, the rupee lost about one-third of its value so far this year, and foreign currency holdings have fallen by more than half since 2007. Foreign currency reserves, which currently stand at less than $8 billion, have been falling at a rate of about $1 billion a month. The country’s benchmark 100-stock index has dropped by 40 percent since April.

Islamabad says it needs at least $2 billion immediately and an additional $8 billion by early next year. The government is seeking low-interest loans from the United States, China, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the World Bank.
 
 
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