Recent events in North Waziristan Agency (NWA) point to the hotbed of terrorist insurgents the area has become incrementally over time. A military check post at Mirali was hit by an explosives laden suicide truck attack the other day while the soldiers were saying their prayers. Five soldiers were killed and 34 wounded. The rescue party evacuating the dead and injured was also ambushed, which invited a counter-attack by the military in which the attackers were finally killed after a prolonged firefight that has given rise to claims that civilians, including women and children were killed as collateral damage. ISPR denies this, pointing out that operational commanders are under strict orders to avoid civilian casualties. The military’s effective response appears to be a departure from previous practice, which was reinforced by local understandings with militant groups of a ‘live and let live’ type. It is being reported that the attackers were Uzbeks and Turkmens, many of whom have made FATA, and particularly NWA, their home for many decades stretching back to the origins of the Afghan wars. ISPR has also stated that this was a localized self-defence action and does not signal the start of a generalized offensive in NWA, something many knowledgeable observers have been demanding for many years, but which has proved a nettle the military is reluctant to grasp. Under former COAS General Kayani, the military’s posture appeared to revolve around the fallout of such an operation as well as the necessity of ownership of any such move by the political leadership. Then and now, that ownership appeared conspicuous by its absence, morphing since the new government came to power into harping on about talks as the preferred option to bring peace, with lately Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ‘conceding’ the possibility of ‘other measures’ if the talks fail. All the eggs the government (and Imran Khan) have put into this talks basket have not so far hatched any chicks, not the least because the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has rejected any notion of engaging in talks since they are convinced a military operation is in the offing. If even at a stretch it is conceived that the TTP was willing in the past or at least in two minds, the killing of TTP’s chief Hakeemullah Mehsud by a drone strike put paid to the whole effort. His successor, Mullah Fazlullah, is even less amenable to talking to the government. This conjuncture suggests the ‘other measures’ may soon have to be resorted to, willy nilly.
In a morale boosting first visit to the Peshawar Corps Headquarters the other day in the wake of the Mirali battle, the new COAS General Raheel Sharif gave a very measured but clear statement as an exposition of the military’s stance. While supporting the government’s first option of talks, the COAS made it amply clear that the military will no longer sit quietly like sitting ducks if attacked by the terrorists. All cannons of warfare allow self-defence. But this still remains, in the absence of a proactive strategy, a defensive posture. NWA also figures in the calculus of post-2014 Afghanistan. But it is undeniable that sooner or later, and quite possibly as a response to developments on the ground, the hornets’ nest of terrorism in NWA will have to be tackled. The TTP now says that its past relationship with the Afghan Taliban, in which it acted as their hosts and supporters, has been reversed to the latter now financing and supporting the TTP. This ‘confession’ should give pause to the military in its long standing posture of covertly if not overtly backing the Afghan Taliban.
The Mirali encounter may have been a limited action, but it is not unreasonable to see in it the shape of things to come. While the government and Imran Khan pursue their (seemingly futile) efforts to woo the TTP to the negotiating table, the military needs to keep its powder dry and strategise what appears to many to be the inevitable conflict with the terrorists who have so far enjoyed safe havens in FATA (specially NWA) and represent a permanent threat to the security of state and society. A nettle cannot be gently stroked without damage and hurt to oneself. It can only and must be grasped firmly if success is to be had.
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