Vol. 73/No. 5      February 9, 2009

The missile attacks in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas January 23 killed some 20 people. In North Waziristan a house belonging to Khalil Dawar, a local resident believed to host Taliban fighters, was hit with three Hellfire missiles. Dawar was killed along with his two sons, reported the News, a major Pakistani English-language daily. A Pakistani government official told the News that six of those killed were Taliban fighters.

The other drone killed 10 civilians, including four children, when it struck the home of South Waziristan resident Dil Faraz Gangikhel Wazir, according to a local official.

The two attacks continue the previous administration’s use of drone strikes in Pakistan, which have been stepped up since last September.

Pakistan is “the central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism,” President Obama said January 22 at a State Department meeting.

At a conference in early January, Chief of U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus described Afghanistan and Pakistan as “a single problem set.” Obama recently appointed Richard Holbrooke as special U.S. envoy to represent Washington’s interests in both counties.  
 
Washington seeks new supply routes
Meanwhile, Washington is seeking alternative routes to supply U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan, as the Pakistani military has been losing ground against Islamist forces in parts of Pakistan’s northwest.

U.S. and NATO forces receive some 70 percent of their supplies and 40 percent of their fuel through a Pakistani supply route that runs from the Karachi port to the Khyber Pass on Pakistan’s northwest border with Afghanistan.

U.S. military officials are preparing to nearly double U.S. forces in Afghanistan over the next year to quell the growing Islamist insurgency in the region.

The main U.S. and NATO military supply route to Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass has become less reliable for the imperialist armies because of continued Taliban assaults on supply depots. As a result, Washington has begun to negotiate with Moscow and some Central Asian countries to secure an alternative route from the north.

Since the latter part of 2008, Taliban forces have destroyed more than 300 trucks and other vehicles in attacks along the Khyber Pass route. The Pakistani government temporarily closed the pass January 19 after Taliban forces attacked a military base in Khyber, killing one Pakistani soldier and wounding 10 others. Islamabad had briefly closed the pass on four other occasions since September.

Islamabad’s paramilitary Frontier Corps launched a new offensive against Taliban forces in Khyber following the January 19 attack. A joint operation of CIA operatives and Pakistani paramilitaries raided a village there January 21, reported the News. The Pakistani military has announced victory over Taliban in this area twice before—once in November and again in December—only to see the Taliban reemerge.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev confirmed January 23 that Moscow had agreed to work with Washington to establish an alternative route for U.S. military supplies.

Details on the exact plan remain unknown. But the only feasible possibilities go through those former Soviet countries where Washington could not secure any deals without Moscow’s agreement. The only other possibility is a much shorter route through Iran.

Moscow will likely press for political concessions as part of a deal as the two rival powers have been locked in a contest for influence over countries that had been part of the former Soviet Union.

Gen. David Petraeus, who as head of U.S. Central Command has responsibility for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, said January 9 that the command’s mission will require a “regional approach” that includes Russia, India, China, the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, and “perhaps at some point, Iran.”

The Taliban operate in the predominately Pashtun mountainous region along the Afghan-Pakistani border. In Pakistan this includes the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the North West Frontier Province, and the northern part of Baluchistan Province.

The Taliban movement is one of the Islamist formations that the Pakistani government organized, funded, and armed to extend its political influence in Afghanistan. But under pressure following Washington’s invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Islamabad launched its own war against major factions of the group.

Taliban forces have increasingly used strongholds in Pakistan as bases from which to organize and launch assaults against U.S., NATO, and Afghan forces in Afghanistan. In a break from this pattern, some 600 Taliban fighters crossed over from Afghanistan January 11 and joined an assault on a military base in Pakistan’s Mohmand Agency, to the north of Khyber.

Frontier Corps soldiers responded with air and artillery strikes over the following week and a ground offensive in which soldiers bulldozed or burnt down hundreds of homes and businesses.

Pakistani forces have also launched major offensives in several areas of the country, including Bajur and Swat. Civilians in the region have been killed by both sides, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes. At least 200,000 people have left Swat alone—some 12 percent of the district’s population.

Government troops have made gains in Bajur Agency and other areas, government officials have told the News. But Taliban forces have made major gains in Swat and now control nearly the entire district.  
 
Under Taliban rule
As part of its latest offensive operations in the Swat valley, the Pakistani military issued an indefinite around-the-clock curfew in five towns beginning January 25. A press release from the Swat Media Centre said anyone found violating the curfew will be shot on sight.

A Taliban faction led by Maulana Fazlullah has set up sharia (Islamic) courts with public mutilations and executions throughout the Swat valley. The same day Pakistani officials established the curfew, a Taliban council headed by Fazlullah ordered some 50 national and provincial politicians as well as local khans (tribal chiefs) to turn themselves in to face Taliban justice.

Government employees, police, teachers, and female health-care workers have taken out newspaper ads announcing their resignations. Hundreds of businesses and industries have closed, leaving tens of thousands unemployed.

Mutilated bodies are hung and strewn almost daily in the famous Green Square in Mingora, Swat’s capital. Women do not shop. Even at the “Women’s Market” a sign hangs outside saying, “No women allowed.” Bus drivers in the region have removed stereos and televisions from buses in response to Taliban suicide bomb threats.

Taliban spokesmen have taken over radio waves. In parts of the valley, Taliban fighters have been collecting 10 percent of farmers’ crops, a customary feudal tax, the News reports.

A January 15 deadline to end all girl’s education in Swat, announced in late December, was extended to include neighboring Malakand. The Islamists have instilled fear by recently burning down or blowing up some 200 elementary and high schools in the area.
 
 
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