Dispatches from Pakistan

Inside Militancy in Waziristan

203 InsideMilitancyinWaziristan iqbal khattak heavy clouds covered the sun. Rain lashed the hard land of Mehsud. A car carrying a group of journalists made its way to Makeen, the headquarters of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in South Waziristan. Hakeemullah Mehsud, the new face of the TTP and aide to the militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, appeared from the shade to greet the media. “Welcome to our land,” he said. Not long after, on August 5, 2009, a CIA drone struck the region and killed Baitullah Mehsud and his second wife at her father’s home. Hakeemullah was crowned the head of the TTP. The Pakistani government had considered theTTPthe most dangerous terror network.With Baitullah out of the way, the government pledged to kill both Hakeemullah and the organization he headed. It was hard to believe the Pakistani military spokesperson, Major GeneralAtharAbbas, when he announced on October 17 that it would take not more than six to eight weeks to complete Operation Rah-e-Nijat (Operation Path to Salvation). The “decisive” operation was not long in coming. The inhospitable terrain and the TTP’s strong ideological and institutional hold on the population made such brave talk seem ridiculous. What was more shocking than this bravado was the TTP’s reaction to Major General Abbas. It began to abandon its base and move to safer havens in other tribal areas. This was the TTP’s “strategic retreat.” 204 Iqbal Khattak The military took quite a long time to complete its preparations. It deployed three divisions (some 45,000 soldiers) to plan the threeprongedattacksontheTTP -heldareas.TheseattackscamefromJandola in the east, Shakai in the west, and Ramzak (North Waziristan) in the north. The military first enforced a complete blockade of the Mehsud areas. The civilian population, some half a million, was evicted to avoid collateral damage. When the army advanced, the TTP-held towns of SpeenkaiRaghzai,Kotkai,Laddah,andMakeenfelllikeahouseofcards. On November 29, 2009, Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani spent the second day of Eidul Azha with soldiers in Makeen. His jawans had just defeated and dismantled the “emirates” of theTTP. The TTP is one of the most vigorous of the Taliban groups in the region. It is a proponent of Takhferi. During the Afghan jihad in the 1980s and 1990s, some Arab mujahideen from Saudi Arabia dissociated themselves from the Wahabbi school of thought. They formed their own school, which they calledTakhferi, far more rigid thanWahabbism. (Takhferi comes from the Arabic word Takhfir, which is itself derived from Kafir, or impiety.To declare someone Takhfer is to claim that they are apostates, impure, and so condemned to death.)TheTakhferi group formed outfits in Dir district of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan and Jalalabad City inAfghanistan.The group is no longer as active as it once was in Pakistan. In tribal dynamics, local alliances are formed before any major battle takes place. Two particular groups—the Mullah Nazir group in the west of South Waziristan and the Haji Gul Bahadur group in North Waziristan—would have been strategically positioned to make the battles far more difficult, if not impossible for the army. But this time the tribal allies remained neutral, at least during the course of the offensive. The civil bureaucracy with strong support from the military started building an anti-TTP alliance in favor of the operation. Feuds between tribes are not uncommon. Old rivalries between the Ahmedzai Wazir and the Mehsud tribes provided the government with a golden opportunity . They exploited the situation and kept Mullah Nazir away from Hakeemullah and the Mehsuds. This failure to create a tribal alliance relieved the military of any pressure if they used the western base in Wana, the summer capital of South Waziristan, in their operation inside militancy in waziristan 205 against the TTP. The Wana base played a key role in the attack on Laddah from the west. “Since the Ahmedzai Wazir tribes have traditional rivalry with the Mehsuds we do not want that our areas are also dragged into this operation ,” an influentialAhmedzaiWazir elder confided to me. “That is why we influenced Mullah Nazir to extend no support to the Mehsuds in this offensive and we are successful in this attempt.” He told me this after the military secured the western front against the Hakeemullahled militants. Mullah Nazir’s backing to the operation, however, did not come without concessions from the government...