Floods Stunt Pakistani Fight Against Insurgents

New York Times

KALAM, Pakistan — The destruction caused by the recent floods and the huge relief effort undertaken since by the Pakistani Army have forced it to alter plans to combat Taliban and Qaeda militants, Pakistani military officials here said.

Troops who have been fighting Islamist militants in the Swat Valley for the last two years will have to stay here for six months longer than planned, army officers here said. Elsewhere, some planned offensive actions have been converted to defensive actions to consolidate gains already made, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, spokesman for the military, said in a telephone call.

While the changes do not appear to involve any major retrenchment in the nation’s counterinsurgency strategy, they are the first sign of the strain the countrywide flooding has put on Pakistan’s armed forces, which are overstretched in dealing with a virulent insurgency. The Pakistani military has already delayed operations against North Waziristan, the central hub of militancy and Al Qaeda, because it says its forces are overextended.

The armed forces had to divert 72,000 men at the peak, including army and navy commandos of its Special Services Group, to do the heavy lifting of the flood rescue and relief effort, as well as provide security for United States helicopters that have joined the relief effort.

The Pakistani military insists that not many of the 147,000 troops deployed in the northwestern region have been diverted by the floods and that continuing operations against militants in the border region with Afghanistan have not been affected. Troops are continuing to conduct offensive operations in several places, like the Orakzai and Khyber regions, General Abbas said.

Yet the floods have disrupted communications and supply lines for the army as well as the civilian population in places like the Swat Valley, and have forced the army to divert helicopters to relief efforts, the general conceded.

“It has drawn the army’s attention for different reasons,” he said.

The army has moved to safeguard gains made in recent months against militant networks in South Waziristan, Bajaur and Orakzai and will continue to deny the insurgents space to maneuver, he said. “In some places where the army was on offensive operations, they have taken defensive positions,” he said.

General Abbas said he was unaware of any specific plans for deployments in the Swat region, except that the army was building four permanent military garrisons in the Swat Valley. But during a recent visit to Kalam, a small mountain resort at the northern end of the Swat Valley, Pakistani officers said they would be delaying plans to withdraw.

The army had been planning to scale down military operations and hand over policing to a strengthened police force by October, said Col. Nadeem Anwar, deputy commander of the army brigade deployed in the Swat Valley. That plan has now been postponed at least six months until next spring or summer, he and other security officials said.

The valley has been largely cleared of militants after two years of a sometimes brutal military campaign, yet militants keep seeking to slip back into the valley and make a show of their presence. In the days immediately after New York Times journalists visited Kalam, catching a ride on a United States Marine helicopter that was ferrying aid up the valley, militants attacked two schools in the district, bombing one and setting another on fire.

The Pakistani Army unit based in the town of Kalam is continuing counterinsurgency operations, including night patrols in the surrounding mountains, to watch for any return of militants. “We know their favorite places,” one commando said.

Yet at the same time the unit is managing a large-scale relief effort, with a constant daily flow of helicopters bringing in humanitarian assistance and ferrying townspeople out. The army is also running a tented camp and providing for nearly 4,000 homeless people, registering and dispensing humanitarian parcels to many more who are affected by the floods, and organizing 300 workers to start clearing more than two miles of road covered by landslides.

Colonel Nadeem was sent in from the brigade’s base in Mardan to oversee relief work in Kalam, so that counterinsurgency operations would not be interrupted. A corps of army engineers has also been sent lower in the valley to work on restoring communications, building temporary bridges and reopening roads.

The Swat Valley was one of the first regions in Pakistan to be hit by flooding and was among the worst hit. Though there seems to be little local enthusiasm for the army presence — residents said they were afraid to speak to a reporter in the presence of the military — many people here owe their lives to the presence of the army.

After four days of torrential monsoon rains, it was army officers who first noticed the danger signs when they encountered two unusually big landslides that cut the main road below Kalam around dusk on July 28.

As the river visibly rose, the army ordered the evacuation of some 6,000 Pakistani tourists from hotels along the riverbank, as well as townspeople from the houses and shops on the other side. By 9 p.m. the river had turned into a raging torrent that swept away the town’s bridge, a four-story riverside hotel, and houses and shops. Such was the force of the water that it permanently altered the course of the river.

A month later an army engineer was organizing the construction of a temporary metal bridge, inching it across the river with the combined muscle power of several dozen civilian workers. On the other side of the river, men worked feverishly to mix cement and prepare a strong base for the bridge. Nearby villagers carrying donated sacks of flour crossed a footbridge made of freshly hewn tree trunks on the start of a long trek to their homes further up the valley.

“No food is reaching here. All the bridges are down,” said a farmer, Afsal Khan, 25. “There are no facilities; everyone is trying to get down the valley.” He was lined up with hundreds of other men hoping to catch a ride down the valley on a United States Navy helicopter to buy supplies for his family. It would be a 24-hour hike — for some a two-day trek — to carry them back up the mountain to their homes, he said.

Army engineers have already set up temporary bridges lower in the valley and hope to open a rough road, passable by light jeeps, within a month. But Colonel Nadeem estimated it would take months, or longer, to reopen the valley to normal freight trucks. That will not only hamper the military operation but also leave thousands of farmers — who cannot move their produce down the valley to market or bring up basic staples and agricultural necessities — dependent on aid, he said.

Taliban insurgents, meanwhile, are intent on continuing their campaign of violence, yet they seem to be aiming at soft targets, using sleeper cells to set off car bombs and suicide attacks rather than instigating direct military clashes with the army, General Abbas said. There have been several serious suicide bomb attacks in the cities, he said, but no significant ground action by militants since the onset of the floods.