There are news reports that the Pakistan Army is planning to raise an anti-Taliban lashkar (militia) in North Waziristan again the multi-ethnic international terror syndicate based in the area. Reportedly, the idea was discussed in the recently held corps commanders meeting. This news emerged in the context of two other news reports. One, the military ruled out an immediate operation against the pro-military Haqqani Taliban in North Waziristan in the backdrop of the US pressure, which has been pushing for a military offensive against the Haqqani militants who assault the US, NATO and Afghan forces from FATA, especially North Waziristan. The other news is about the recent meeting between General Kayani and CIA chief Leon Panetta in which the latter confronted the former with video evidence showing the Pakistani state’s collusion with the Taliban militants. The video shows the militants evacuating two bomb-making factories in Waziristan. The CIA conclusion is that the militants were tipped off within 24 hours of the US sharing information on the facilities with Pakistan.
Is it even possible to raise a tribal lashkar in North Waziristan against the militants? Two issues in the recent past have to be looked into to answer this question. What did the military do with the two kinds of tribal lashkars raised against the militants in the past? One kind of lashkar are those that have been raised by several tribes on their own volition in the face of utter lack of state protection, like the lashkars raised by the Ali Khel and Feroz Khel tribes in Orakzai and Salarzai tribe in Bajaur. In a treacherous collusion with the Taliban, the military just sat back and gave a free hand to them to slaughter the Ali Khel and Feroz Khel lashkar. The Ali Khel and Feroz Khel tribesmen straightaway hold the ISI, not the Taliban, responsible for the annihilation of their lashkar against the Taliban. The Salarzai lashkar, although standing to this date and successful in many ways, has immensely scarified in terms of human and material losses. Actually the entire Salarzai tribe has been punished with targeted killings and suicide attacks, including one deadly attack on Salarzai IDPs for supporting their lashkar. Guess who the Salarzais hold responsible for making their resistance against the Taliban so blood-soaked? None but the ISI! There have been other anti-Taliban lashkars in FATA who have never been outfought but always outmanoeuvred by the Taliban; outmanoeuvred because the Taliban were tacitly backed by the ISI.
The other kind of anti-Taliban lashkars were raised with government encouragement, like the lashkar in the Adeyzai village on the border with Darra Adam Khel in FATA. Minus an initial support in terms of Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition, the lashkar hardly received any support from the government. The lashkar has many complaints against the government in terms of its commitment to fight the Taliban and lack of material support to the lashkar. I have been writing about the lashkar’s complaints in my columns in this newspaper.
The tribes in FATA do not trust the military-intelligence establishment of Pakistan. They understand that the establishment is playing a double game with them whereby on the one hand they are deliberately leaving them alone at the hands of the terrorists so that they raise anti-Taliban lashkars in self-defence or actively encourage them to raise the lashkar and on the other hand turn a blind eye to the Taliban to slaughter the lashkars. The gaol is to address US concerns over cross-border terrorism by keeping the bloody double game going on in FATA to shift the responsibility for the violence to the ‘unruly’ tribes and absolve the security establishment of any responsibility for the violence. The mistrust will continue unless the military give up its jihadi pursuit of foreign policy objectives and the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban. People in FATA do not make a distinction between good or bad Taliban because they have suffered at the hands of both and would like to see both eliminated.
Many people in the world may be realising only in the aftermath of bin Laden’s killing by the US in a Pakistani military town that there is a deep mistrust between the US and Pakistan over the war on terror. But this, the mistrust in the security establishment, is an old story in FATA and began in 2003 when targeted killing of the tribal leaders began in mysterious circumstances. The government never investigated who killed over 1,000 tribal leaders. The families of most of the tribal leaders hold the ISI responsible for the killings.
There is also another kind of mistrust in FATA that is especially acute in Waziristan, i.e. the people do not trust each other due to an omnipresent fear and uncertainty in the area. Everyone fears that the other person might be spying for the ISI or the Taliban or the US and any spoken word might lead him to a violent death. Countless dreadful murders in the area, including beheadings, made people withdraw from public life and keep quiet as a means to survive in these utterly dangerous times they or their forefathers never experienced. The tribesmen from Waziristan are more likely to open up their hearts to outsiders, provided they take them into confidence, but often reluctant to openly speak up in front of fellow tribesmen. This is the logical output of the reign of terror raging in the area for a decade that has consumed thousands of people at the hands of invisible assassins. This pervasive mistrust can be discerned from these words of a tribal leader from North Waziristan, who anonymously spoke to the Daily Times (June 15, 2011) about the military’s plan to raise lashkars in his area: “Only an insane person would think about an anti-Taliban lashkar here (in North Waziristan).”
True that raising lashkars on rare occasions is part of the tribal tradition but lashkars have been affective when the tribal areas were isolated areas and tribes were left alone by the rest of the world, i.e. pre-9/11 FATA. At that time the jirgas used to peacefully resolve most of the tribal disputes. But sometimes lashkars were raised to deal with local tribal disputes over land, forest or water when the tribal jirga had failed to peacefully resolve the disputes. With so many intelligence agencies around the world now eyeing FATA and especially the abuse of the area as strategic space by the Pakistani security establishment, raising of lashkars is meaningless if the aim is to eliminate the international terrorists occupying parts of FATA. The tribes, especially those in Waziristan, would be most reluctant to raise lashkars in such conditions unless they are forced to do so. Many people in Waziristan have already begun to express the fear of a new round of targeted killings of the remaining tribal leaders in the area in the aftermath of bin Laden’s killing. Will their fear translate into the military establishment’ pressure tactics to force the tribesmen to raise an anti-Taliban lashkar? Let’s see what happens.
The writer is a PhD Research Fellow with the University of Oslo and currently writing a book, Taliban and Anti-Taliban