A Game-Changing Attack in Pakistan

Two days ago, Taliban-affiliated forces launched an attack on the national headquarters of the Pakistani Army. The result was a firefight followed by a standoff with hostages that ended earlier today. This attack represents a game-changing moment for Pakistan, and by extension for the US-led coalition in Afghanistan. Here's why.

In the past,the Pakistani military and intelligence (ISI) establishment have allowed the Taliban considerable freedom of operation inside Pakistan, and either turned a blind eye or provided support to Taliban and Al Qaeda forces operating across the border in Afghanistan who are based inside Pakistan, primarily in South Waziristan.

The toleration of Pakistani Taliban wore thin in May, when Taliban forces seized control of the Swat Valley, ending a truce with the Pakistani government. That action prompted the Pakistani military to engage in an extended campaign over the Summer to unseat them, leading to a formal declaration of surrender by Taliban forces in September. During the course of that campaign, Pakistani forces massed on the border of South Waziristan, the province that is home to the bulk of the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces, but never actually went in. Invading South Waziristan would be no small undertaking. There are an estimated 10,000 Taliban fighters in that province, and previous military incursions have been beaten back with significant losses.

Despite the crackdown on the Taliban inside Pakistan, the military and the ISI have continued to allow Al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban forces to operate with impunity, presumably as a check on Indian influence in Afghanistan. India's influence is largely in the form of infrastructure investment. Pakistan simply does not have the economic resources to compete on that basis, so it relies on Pashtun proxies. As recently as this past week, in fact, Afghan government sources allege that the ISI was directly involved in a Taliban attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul.

The assumption by most observers has been that the leadership of the Pakistani military and the ISI -- whose degree of coordination is unclear at the best of times -- believed that they could adequately contain Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda forces while still tolerating (or supporting) Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other extremist forces operating in Afghanistan. And not necessarily only in Afghanistan. There were widespread reports of a past relationship between the ISI and Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jumat-ad-Dawa, the group(s) that launched bloody attacks in Mumbai last year. (The precise relationship between LeT and JaD is unclear.) When and to what extent that relationship was terminated is a matter for speculation; India, for one, continues to assert that these groups have direct ISI support.

All of this created significant strains on the US-Pakistan alliance, a relationship that was strained further by allegations by two Pakistani generals that out of $6.6 billion in US military aid to Pakistan, only about $500 million ever reached the army. That allegation, in turn, led directly to the latest straw to strain the back of US-Pakistani cooperation. Last week the U.S. Congress approved yet another aid bill to Pakistan, for $7.5 billion, co-authored by John Kerry and Richard Lugar. This time the idea was to correct past mistakes; the bill included specific benchmarks, oversight of expenditures, and a requirement that the Pakistani military take action against Taliban and other extremist forces. By what may have been an unfortunate bit of timing, the bill arrived at a time when there was already controversy in Pakistan over the increasingly large American footprint, exemplified by the construction of a massive new embassy compound in Islamabad. The response was a political uproar. Military officials publicly condemned the bill as American meddling in Pakistani security, opposition politicians used it to renew their characterization of President Zardari as an American puppet.

Much of this is simply internal politics rather than a disagreement over strategic goals. The military's objections to the U.S. bill, in particular, may be taken as much to be a message to the civilian government not to imagine that it has control over the military as an actual objection to the idea of using U.S. aid to increase operations against the Pakistan Taliban. But the U.S. aid bill specifically called on the Pakistani military to dismantle outposts in southwestern city of Quetta (Balochistan) -- where U.S. officials say Afghan Taliban leaders are based - and the eastern town of Muridke (East, near Lahore -- see map here.) These are locations far from Waziristan; Quetta has been the base for attacks into Afghanistan, and Muridke is considered the home base of the two groups mentioned above, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jumat-ad-Dawa. Thus the military's objections to being asked to take action against these targets may reflect something deeper and more troubling than a desire to establish a domestic political position.

But all of this may have changed this past week. The attack on the military headquarters two days ago was the third attack in the past two weeks -- the other two were a bombing of the U.N. food program in Islamabad that killed 5 and a bomb in a Peshawar market that killed 49. These attacks were understood to be warnings designed to discourage the Pakistani government from proceeding with an invasion into South Waziristan. Instead, after the Peshawar bombing Interior Minister Rehman Malik declared that the government has "no choice" but to proceed with its operation. He now describes the operation as "imminent," and supporting air strikes have already begun.

In other words, the strategy of containing Pakistani extremist forces while giving free rein to those operating elsewhere has come unraveled. The potential game-changer, then, would be a monumental strategic blunder by Taliban forces that could force the Pakistani military and intelligence forces to look beyond South Waziristan and abandon their strategy of toleration for extremist groups. All along, the question has been whether Pakistan's military, its intelligence establishment, and its government -- each individually and independently -- had the will to commit to an all-out conflict with extremist forces. This week's attacks may have gone a long way to settling that question, at least in the short term.

That does not mean we can assume that the army or the ISI will become all-out allies in America's conflict for the long term. One of the concerns about the attack on the military headquarters is the fact that the attackers were wearing military uniforms, and appear to have passed through an area with a heavy presence of security checkpoints. There is concern, therefore, that they may have had help from inside. For that matter, there have been concerns for a long time about elements within the Pakistani military that are sympathetic to the Taliban, and the same is true of Pakistani intelligence. That means that a serious confrontation with Taliban forces might have yet another dimension for the military -- an internal one. Which is yet another tall order.

Nonetheless, right now it appears that the game has significantly changed. This is a moment the Obama administration needs to take advantage of as it conducts its strategic review. It's not "Afghanistan," it's the "Af-Pak" theater -- if not the "Af-Pak-India" theater -- and right now it looks as though Pakistan is about to emerge as its central front.

 

Comments

[Taylor Schaberg]

Hey Howard, I am a former student of yours! I haven't read the article but plan on it! haha

Hope all is well buddy! Good job getting on the HuffingtonPost bandwagon!

[gandolf101]

how come the Pakistan goverment is allowed to defend themselves , where is
the outrage that 100, 000 civilians have been displaced. where is the call for the UN to stop the
Pakistan military from advancing ?where is the reporters? no live reports whats the problem .
why dont we hear of the civilian deaths and see the destruction of their homes.
who is protecting the poor taliban families from this revenge of the Pakistani goverment .
I hope they bring up the Pakistani goverment and their military in front of the UN for the atrocities being carried out by Pakistani military.

[ghudson68]

Any US ally is eventually going to incur the wrath of terrorists, irregardless if they are accepting of terrorism themselves. I guess it just took Pakistan a lot longer to cotton on to this earth-shattering fact.

www.newsy.com/videos/pakistan_attacks_what_it_means_for_the_u_s

[wadenelson1]

How come no mention of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, blamed for the recent attack on Pakistani military hq?

[FedUpIndian]

This is a reasonable analysis of the situation in Pakistan. One minor point - the support that Pakistan's army and ISI give to the Afghan Taliban is only indirectly about countering India's influence in Afghanistan. The real issue is that no Afghan government has ever recognized the Durand Line which divides the Pashtun population in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Most Afghans believe that Waziristan and the North-west Frontier Province (NFWP), where the Pakistani Pashtun population is concentrated, should really be part of Afghanistan, and there have been sporadic secessionist movements over the decades in that region. The last thing Pakistan wants is a full-fledged secessionist movement in the NWFP supported by a hostile regime in Kabul, since that would probably lead to a further breakup of Pakistan along ethnic lines. So the best-case scenario from Pakistan's viewpoint is a client regime in Kabul that helps to keep the restless Pashtun population in Pakistan in check.

[henryberry]

Schweber unfortunately closes his otherwise timely overview with the term "central front" which is totally inappropriate to the so-called war on terrorism. Even now after the "central front" has been relocated several times, American politicians, generals, and even the independent commentator/analyst Schweber continue to use the term. "Central front" has about as much relevance to the war against terrorism as the term does with the tides of the oceans. "Central front" implies a mistaken concept of terrorism; and this leads to a mistaken approach to trying to deal with terrorism. There is no central front against terrorism--which is an ideological, multifaceted, global, and protean phenomenon.

Schweber's use of the term does however play over fundamentals of the situation in the region which are only coincidental in the war against terrorism, but which are reflections of typical activities and goals of big power nations. China and India are probably becoming the more important presences than the U.S. It's beginning to look to me that the war on terrorism conceived so that it has a "central front" is in fact becoming secondary to big power aims. Who comes out ahead in this will have nothing to do with who is seen to win the "war of terrorism," but what country has the best relations with Pakistan and the group or groups have the most control and influence in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the "central front" will probably be moved to Yemen or Somalia.

[jaysan]

Pakistan created the Taliban, in an attempt to turn its northern neighbor Afghanistan into a satellite state.
That attempt failed, as the result was 9/11.

A nervous Pakistan then acquiesced to US demands to deploy troops against Taliban, but Pakistan only cooperates with the US on the surface, while it quietly maintains ties with Taliban behind the scenes, even as it takes aid from the US.

How long can Pakistan maintain its high-wire act? They seem to have been surviving through stuntsmanship so far.

Pakistan is gradually losing control over the situation, as its erstwhile partners-in-crime, the Taliban, now turn their fury on it.

Sooner or later, Pakistan will have to bite the bullet and decide which side to take -- the pro-Taliban side or the anti-Taliban side. Attacking Waziristan will now bring the issue to a head. It remains to be seen if Pakistan will sign yet another "peace treaty" with Taliban after its forces get bogged down there.

Oh, you do all remember those past "peace treaties" Islamabad has signed with Taliban, don't you?
Haven't forgotten about those, have we?

[WritusMaximus]

Won't be surprised if Pakistan does its own cleansing---you know, "accidents" and Taliban-blamed murders of top Pakistani brass. Think of it as "When in a dictatorship, tranquil sleeps the person that wears the crown when there aint nobody else left to claim it."

[vinny]

the billions of unaccounted for aid to pakistan ticks me off...

[wadenelson1]

How many Americans would that have purchased healthcare for?

[Humanistic]

As long as there are American bases, troops, and aircraft in the Muslim "holy lands", there will be terrorism against America. That's why it started in the first place. The longer we stay, the more young men will be recruited by the Islamists. Get our forces out, and the terrorism will end -- it's that simple. We will never be able to tame or rebuild these nations.

[jaysan]

Why'd your buddy Clinton bomb Belgrade then? Just to make more friends, and to send more troops to places that have never harmed the USA?

[wadenelson1]

Agreed. Once we leave the different factions turn on each other. Sunni vs Shiite and so on.

Let them destroy each other, not us.

[lonemoderate]

I have only one qualm to pick with this article.

The Jamaat-ud-Dawa is the Lashkar-e-Taiba. They are one and the same.

One is the militant wing and the other is the public face instituted after the first Mumbai train bombing, but both share the same Ahle-Hadith madrassas and the same training centers including the one at Muridke.

The Jamaat-ud-Dawaa is the generally what takes credit for any positive work done inside Pakistan (e.g. disaster relief in Pakistani Kashmir after the earthquake) while they become Lashkar-e-Taiba when they cross the Indian (or Afghan) border.

[Paramendra Bhagat]

A major detail indeed.

[trccommission]

Why is this anymore of a "gamechanger" than the attack on the barracks in Rawalpindi earlier this year? These attacks are intermittent and brutal, the only surprising thing has been that even with the will of the Pakistani people turning against their indigenous taliban many months ago, the governement and army have been so slow to reassert themselves in the tribal areas.