The first discussion of the morning session brought together regional experts to discuss where the major terrorist threats are now emerging from, and what governments must do to counter them.  Moderated by ICSR Deputy Director John Bew, the panel participants were the former Prime Minister of Yemen, H.E. Abdulkarim Al-Eryani; Sabri Saidam, a senior advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas; Dr. Robert Rotberg of Harvard’s Belfer Centre; and Ali Jalali, the former Afghan Interior Minister.  The audience was also given a brief welcome by Carrie Lemack, co-founder of Families of September 11 and the Global Survivors Network.

Dr. Bew began by asking Jalali if al-Qaeda’s recent forays into Somalia and Yemen signaled that they were being defeated in Afghanistan.  He responded by saying that he believed al-Qaeda are still a major threat with significant influence over the Taliban, who have in turn gained a lot of operational and tactical knowledge from the terrorist network.

Discussing al-Qaeda’s gradually increasing presence in Yemen, Al-Eryani reminded the audience that the government there has been combating global terrorists since 2000. He estimated that al-Qaeda’s current numbers in the region are around 700, and noted that they are strengthened by tribal protection in the Eastern mountainous regions.  He also specifically mentioned Anwar al-Awlaki as one of the main al-Qaeda members currently under tribal protection, but perceived him to have no base or major following in the region, instead appealing more to Western Muslims via the internet.   Although al-Qaeda does have a presence in Yemen, Al-Eryani did not assess that they had any capability to topple the current government, and he saw much of their influence to be outside of Yemen.

When asked by Dr. Bew whether or not US intervention in Somalia is exacerbating the situation there, Dr. Rotberg said he believed that to some extent it was creating further problem.  Although he also stressed the importance of working with the Somali people, particularly in the North of the country, where there is a smaller presence of militant jihadist groups.  He added that the al-Qaeda connected militants were mainly in the South of Somalia.

Dr. Bew then shifted the discussion to the importance of stable government in resisting terror networks, and what role ideology played in inspiring these movements.  Ahmed Jalali placed much significance on both of these factors, saying that many terrorist groups were motivated primarily by their ideology, and that they thrive in ungoverned spaces.  It is crucial, he argued, to gain control of these spaces using a combination of military force and political negotiation if countries are to neutralise terrorist groups.  Dr. Rotberg was similar in his assessment, claiming that the main focus must be on improving governance in regions where global jihadist networks are currently thriving.  He also stated that in order to achieve this, negotiations with militant organisations and others who “we wouldn’t normally talk to” was crucial. Saidam echoed this idea but warned the audience that democracy and good governance cannot be “parachuted in” – it must be cultivated and supported from within.

After the initial discussion, an audience member asked Al-Eryani about his views on the strategic benefit of drone attacks, and whether or not they were a necessary tool.  He argued that, although al-Qaeda propaganda benefits from civilian casualties often caused by drones, there are certain circumstances where they must be used.

This signaled the end of the first discussion of the morning, after which the audience was treated to an in-depth analysis of the Northern Ireland peace process by Lord David Trimble (click here for a summary of his speech and pictures).

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According to alarming reports from Pakistan, coordinated sectarian attacks on mosques in Lahore have led to the deaths of approximately 70 people.  Earlier today, gunmen armed with grenades and automatic weapons attacked two mosques 15 kilometres apart in the city. It seems to have followed the fedayeen style of operation that have becoming increasingly popular with jihadist groups in the region, since the 2008 assault on Mumbai and 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team attacks.  Three attackers also blew themselves up as police entered the building to end the siege.

One eyewitness described how one of the attackers “reminded me of the people who attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team, he was wearing similar clothes - the traditional Pakistani dress shalwar kameez and he looked like someone from a tribal area.” Early reports from Pakistan suggest that this was the work of the Punjabi wing of the Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), on which ICSR recently held a seminar.

The two mosques belong to the Ahmadiyya sect, a sizeable religious Muslim minority in Pakistan that have long been the targets of sectarian Islamist groups who consider them to represent a deviant sect of Islam.  For most Sunni Muslims, a central tenet of Islam is that Mohammed was the final prophet (rusool) of God, whereas the Ahmadiyya sect are followers of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Kadiani, who they believe succeeded Mohammed.   

In Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) have been at the forefront of this persecution, inciting violence and hatred against the Ahmadiyya, referring to them as kafir (non-Muslims) and calling for the nationwide closure of all their mosques.  In 1984, under the patronage of President Zia ul-Haq, the JI successfully lobbied for Ahmadi practices to be outlawed under blasphemy laws, preventing, among other things, “an Ahmadi, calling himself a Muslim, or preaching or propagating his faith, or outraging the religious feelings of Muslims, or posing himself as a Muslim.”  In 2009, Amnesty international issued a press release appealing for the law to be reviewed, stating:

Attacks on religious minorities have been exacerbated by Pakistan’s blasphemy laws which have fostered a climate of religiously-motivated violence and persecution. Accusations of blasphemy have frequently resulted in the murder of both Muslims and members of religious minorities.

The blasphemy laws, while purporting to protect Islam and religious sensitivities of the Muslim majority, are vaguely formulated and arbitrarily enforced by the police and judiciary in a way which amounts to harassment and persecution of religious minorities.

Today’s attacks, though the worst in recent memory, are by no means the first of their kind and are probably not going to be the last.  Regular sectarian attacks on the Ahmadiyya rarely make the news in this country, overshadowed as they are by the conflict in the northern regions against the Taliban. The international community must take much more interest in these types of sectarian attacks. Those who persecute the Ahmadiyya are often the ideological partners of those who wish to attack targets in the West.

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I'd planned to be focusing on final preparations for an upcoming field research trip to Lebanon and Algeria. But then Pakistan went and arrested half the Quetta Shura. The full consequences won't become clear for a while, and a number of questions now loom.

There's obviously the issue of the degree to which this will impair the Taliban operationally. As well as the question of how this move will affect the Taliban's relationship with al-Qaeda on the one hand and Pakistan on the other. The biggest question, for me at least, is what this says about Pakistan's calculus. On the optimistic end one could hope this marks a critical break with Pakistan's past protection of the Afghan Taliban? Or for cynics out there was this a play to remove some of those actors who might have sought a separate peace that excluded Pakistan from the equation?

The Christian Science Monitor, which broke the story, carries a couple of quotes that point toward the latter:

The crackdown may to be related to efforts by some Taliban leaders to explore talks with Western and Afghan authorities independently of Pakistan, the UN official said. Pakistan is widely suspected of backing the Afghan Taliban in a bid to maintain influence in Afghanistan, a charge Islamabad has long denied. But Pakistan may also be wary of Taliban attempts to initiate talks without its involvement or sanction.

"Pakistan wants a seat at the table," says the UN official, who is familiar with Taliban efforts to initiate talks. "They don't want the Taliban to act independently."

"It's possible that Mullah Baradar and those around him wanted to start thinking about an eventual settlement," says Mr. Muzjda. Former and current Taliban figures emphasize, however, that such a settlement necessarily involves a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces in the country.    

Perhaps. Or maybe Pakistan concluded that the best way to guarantee a seat at the table was to show the U.S. that it deserved one.

On an unrelated matter, I'm not in the practice of linking to different articles that carry an odd quote of mine. But a week ago I gave an interview to the Hindustan Times about LeT's recent activities and what I said ended up differing from what made it into print. I'm going to chalk this up to a crappy phone connection, but nonetheless some important nuances were lost and I wanted to take this opportunity to set the record straight. I appreciate this blog’s readership indulging me.

The crux of the story, which you can read here, was about Lashkar's resurgence especially in light of the recent Pune attack. In it, the reporter quoted me as saying:

Lashkar resurgent spells India bloodied. While Lashkar has shown pan-Islamic tendencies, says Stephen Tankel, author of Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar e Taiba, "for the core leadership, India remains the main enemy." Another fillip for Lashkar, he says, is that despite Mumbai its infrastructure has been unharmed and it's incurred no costs.

I did not say its infrastructure was unharmed and it incurred no costs as a result of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. I said its social welfare operations were restricted, but continued to operate. I also added there was nominal government control over some facets of the organization, but by no means all of it. Further, the government did take JuD [its social welfare wing] out of the formal banking system. While I did say its military infrastructure emerged relatively unscathed, I emphasized I was referring to the military infrastructure and not the overall infrastructure. An important distinction given the restrictions, however minimal they may be, placed on JuD. Overall, I said, the group incurred minimal costs in proportion to the benefits it accrued from the Mumbai attacks.

"Unharmed" and "no costs" are absolutist statements. They give the impression that Pakistan did absolutely nothing, which is not true. I'll be the first to hammer the Pakistanis for not doing nearly enough – and have a number of times – but it's incorrect to suggest they did nothing at all.

Regarding the questionable claim of responsibility by a LeT splinter, the reporter also quoted me as saying  "I've never heard any rumblings about Lashkar splinters." Not what I said. I can name at least one LeT splinter, not to mention the temporary split in the organization in 2004. What I said was that I’d not heard any rumblings about a new splinter organization having emerged.









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On Tuesday Jane Perlez at the NYT reported that Pakistan offered to mediate with Taliban factions who use its territory and have long served as its allies. This is not the first time that Pakistan floated such an idea. In July the Army's spokesman Athar Abbas floated the idea during a CNN interview when he stated Pakistan still had contacts with various Taliban factions and hinted at what wanted [hint: it had something to do with keeping the country to its east out of the country to its west] in exchange for helping to broker a solution. That trial balloon got popped a few hours when the Inter-Services Public Relations denied Abbas ever made the comments.

This time around, the offer came from Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the army chief, during a meeting last month at NATO headquarters. Two things jump out from Perlez's reporting. First, this:

Pakistani officials familiar with General Kayani's thinking said that even as the United States adds troops to Afghanistan, he has determined that the Americans are looking for a fast exit.

The idea that Pakistan is moving because it thinks the U.S. is working on borrowed time could be read many ways, but two broad notions stand out. One is that America has done a poor job of convincing its allies and its enemies that it is prepared to stay the course and Pakistan is positioning itself to resume some sort of hegemonic relationship vis-à-vis Afghanistan. Maybe not turning the clock back to September 10th, but it has successfully waited the U.S. out and is now poised to deliver an acceptable peace.

The other is that Pakistan sees the writing on the wall and realizes that without the U.S. there in the long-term it is going to be forced to deal with a government in Kabul that is much closer to Delhi than it would like. Further, this suggests that Pakistan doubts whether, even without the U.S. there, it could turn the clock back to September 10th and enjoy a proxy government [even one that did not listen to it all that much] in Kabul.

In reality, both of these calculations probably exist simultaneously. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has claimed the ISI stayed out of Afghanistan more than the U.S. expected for the first 4-5 years of the fight because it assumed the U.S. would triumph. When the Taliban’s insurgency gained legs a few years back, the ISI reengaged. It probably did so out of fear and opportunism. In any event, the question is not just what Pakistan hopes to gain in terms of influence in Afghanistan, but what it can deliver for the U.S. and whether that aligns with American goals for the region.

This goes to the second item that jumped out at me:

What the Pakistanis can offer is their influence over the Taliban network of Jalaluddin and Siraj Haqqani, whose forces American commanders say are the most lethal battling American and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Haqqani network is responsible for much of the violence in southern Afghanistan and the major suicide bombing operations in the country. The Haqqani's are close to al-Qaeda's leadership – a relationship that goes back to the war against the Soviets – and have acted as a proxy for Pakistan in Afghanistan. It was responsible for planning the suicide bombing operation against the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008, which U.S. officials claim the ISI engineered. It also helped AQ and the TTP to stage the 30 December attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan. The million dollar question is, therefore, which way would the Haqqani's swing?   

My evolving sense of the ISI vis-à-vis control over proxies like these is that it has a lot more contact and influence than it claims publicly and a less influence than it claims privately. Could Pakistan get the Haqqani network to ratchet back in Afghanistan? Maybe. But could it get the Haqqani's to deliver their AQ allies? I'm pretty skeptical. And while stability in Afghanistan would be great, the idea was always to degrade al-Qaeda. Perlez reports:

According to a Pakistani military official, the Pakistanis would first have to resolve where Qaeda fighters would go and whether they might be given safe passage to Yemen or another location.

This seems a bit far-fetched to me and I can't imagine the U.S. agreeing to it. Of greater concern is that, if the U.S. does pull back from an Afghanistan where Pakistan has greater influence without rolling up al-Qaeda elements in the tribal areas then it is going to be much more difficult to keep the pressure on. Again, stabilizing Afghanistan would be wonderful and taking players like the Haqqanis off the pitch would go a long way toward doing that.

 

But fighting in Afghanistan was always supposed to be a means to the end of al-Qaeda elements in the region. On that score, Dan Markey who knows a thing or two about Pakistan summed it up pretty well when he told Perlez 'The United States side is pretty worried about seeing a deal emerge that suits everyone other than us.'
 

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On Monday, Fred Kaplan captured the sense of ambivalence many seem to feel about Afghanistan. I've been and remain a proponent of a surge there, but just barely. With that in mind, a few quick impressions from President Obama's speech:


1.    The tone itself is what we’ve come to expect – measured, lacking in hubris and suggesting an extensive cost-benefit analysis. Whether or not one agrees with the Administration, the extensive review process suggests the President means it when he says "I'm mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who -- in discussing our national security -- said, "Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs."

2.    The President reiterated his goal of "disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda and its extremist allies." I'd like to know more about how we’ll deal with actually degrading al-Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan during the next 18 months. I understand the President was constrained in what he could say, but I was looking for more about how U.S. operations in Afghanistan translated to action against AQ in Pakistan. I think there is a strong case to be made for why continued U.S. action in Afghanistan is necessary to degrade al-Qaeda. I’m not sure whether the President missed a chance to make that case last night or if he smartly avoided getting too bogged down in al-Qaeda. I wonder whether part of this was a response to the previous Administration.

3.    With his mention of Somalia and Yemen, Obama publicly recognized that whatever the U.S. does in Afghanistan, those actions alone will not defeat al-Qaeda. I don’t think, and certainly hope, that this Administration is not planning to launch a COIN-focused strategy against these or other ungoverned spaces. So why should Afghanistan be any different?

The argument has been made that because AQ is now a transnational movement we should not focus so much energy on Afghanistan. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are AQ 1.0 and we’ve already moved on to AQ 2.0 or 3.0. In other words a decapitation strategy won’t work. Further, attacks can be planned anywhere and so there is no point in focusing so many resources on Afghanistan.

This misses a few salient points. Most jihadi groups are waging what I’d call peripheral campaigns against the West, while remaining focused primarily on their own backyards. Al-Qaeda’s senior leadership – and by that I don’t just mean the top two – is different. It prioritizes the fight against the U.S. and its allies, and most plots disrupted in the West continue to emanate from the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. That makes degrading the capabilities of actors in this region a fundamentally different objective than degrading the capabilities of all jihadi groups in other ungoverned spaces.

4.    Not much was said about Pakistan, but what was said mattered. First, the President made clear that the U.S. relationship with Pakistan would extend – in terms of time and scope – beyond America’s activities in Afghanistan. Second, he made it clear that the U.S. “cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known and whose intentions are clear.” Getting Pakistan to actually go after all of the militant outfits inside its borders will be no easy task. Building capacity there is a must have, but that alone will not be enough. I’ve often wondered whether the U.S. has more or less leverage over Pakistan when it is fighting next door.

5.    The time horizon is clearly what many people will focus onIt’s almost trite to note by this point, but people in the U.S. don’t believe there will be a drawdown in 2011 and people in Afghanistan don’t believe the U.S. will stay. I don’t really think there was a better option – an open-ended commitment was not politically feasible on the home front. That said, it is somewhat unfortunate that the 18-month time horizon just happens to coincide with the official start of the general election season for the 2012 elections. And that the start of the general election season coincides with the traditional summer season surge of fighting by the Taliban.

On the one hand, I do think that putting out a time horizon is necessary to pressure political actors in Afghanistan. On the other, the Taliban can simply melt away and wait things out. Of course, there is no guarantee that a drawdown will actually begin in 18 months or what that will look like. Also missing was a description of what a withdrawal would look like.

6.    There was a clear commitment to facets of the COIN model – strengthening the ANA and ANP as well as providing security for the populace – but no real details about how this will work. That’s understandable. But given some of the other acknowledgements of past failures and current counter-arguments, I’d like to have seen the President acknowledge the challenge posed here. I assume he did not for fear of undercutting morale in Afghanistan. The U.S. is gambling a lot on the ability to build an Afghan army and Afghan police force in the next 18 months. What happens if [or when, depending on your degree of pessimism] this does not come together?

 

You can have a look at the transcript here.

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The anniversary of the Mumbai attacks is this Thursday, which also happens to be Thanksgiving for those of us here in the U.S. Talk about dichotomous experiences. Before hopping on a plane to go eat turkey with the family, I'll do a proper retrospective. In the meantime, I've got a new piece out in the CTC Sentinel looking at the threat LeT poses to India and the West. For those interested, here is the link.

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Jean-Pierre Filiu, a leading expert on jihadism, former French diplomat, now a professor at Sciences-Po Paris (who also blogged for a bit on Jihadica) has just published a book which looks at the future of Al Qaeda.

In his most recent book: The Nine Lives of Al Qaeda (in French "Les Neuf Vies d'Al-Qaïda"), he explains that after twenty years of existence, the organisation has never been closer to disappearing.

His central argument is that the election of Obama is the worst thing that has happened to Bin Laden. AQ had planned on a Republican victory with John McCain. But when Obama was elected, they had no plan B. "That's the weakness of Al Qaeda," he says "despite its mobility on the field its ideology is very rigid". With Obama as president Al Qaeda had to improvise: the racist hatred came first, calling him a house slave and then accusing him of betraying his Muslim roots.

Filiu explains that the desire to demonize Obama stems from the lack of directions for Al Qaeda to attack the US. Similarly, Al Qaeda's old propaganda favourites (the war in Iraq, Guantanamo) had vanished in the first months of the Obama administration.

Today Al Qaeda is fighting for its ninth life in Pakistan, in the same zones along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where the organisation was born 21 years ago, back in 1988 when its militants were fighting against the Red Army in Afghanistan.

With a very thorough analysis Filiu identifies 9 crucial moments in the history of the organisation:

1.    The Great Work : 1988-1991 (Abdallah Azzam, Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Zahawiri support the Afghan resistance in Peshawar)
2.    The Sudanese Exile : 1991-1996 (thanks to Hassan Abdullah al-Turabi)
3.    The Challenges to America : 1996-1998 (bombing against the US embassy in Nairobi which killed 213 in August 1998)
4.    The Afghan Jihadistan : 1998-2001 (with Mollah Omar and the Afghan talibans)
5.    The Collapse of the Sanctuary : 2001-2003 (the September 11 attacks and the American invasion in Afghanistan)
6.    The Campaign of Arabia : 2003-2004 (attempted Jihad in Bin Laden's natal country)
7.    The Blood of Iraq : 2004-2006 (attempt to take advantage of the American and allies' hodgepodge there)
8.    The Caliphate of Shadows : 2006-2007 (development of AQ in Maghreb and Pakistan)
9.    The Headlong Rush : 2007-2009 ( AQ setbacks in Iraq and its other "mission territories")

The apogee of AQ on 9/11 was also the beginning of its decline, he says "the attack generated a feeling of disgust and reject throughout the Arab world, even the most radicals Sheikhs did not support these actions."

The War in Iraq is another missed opportunity for AQ who lost the fight against the Arabic and Sunni guerrillas. While venturing for the first time on Arab land, AQ suffered its most patent failure and has now lost most of its impact in the Arab world.

In a final spurt of effort Al Qaeda has recently tried to generate support in Maghreb (Algeria) and Sub-Saharan Africa, namely Somalia. But AQIM failed to recruit outside Algeria and Al Shabaab's (Somalia) allegiance to Bin Laden was more of a dare to their direct rivals Hizbul Islam than an utter celebration of Al Qaeda's leadership in Islamic jihad.

The story of AQ, as told by Jean-Pierre Filiu, is one of lucky accidents, gross mistakes made by its enemies and rivalry. That does not mean that people will not be fighting in Jihad anymore, but that the type of Jihad that AQ created, the global Jihad, the cult of Jihad for Jihad will soon cease to exist.

 

For those of you who understand French, Rue89 has a podcast of an interview with Jean-Pierre Filiu. Listen here.

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Today's suicide bombing attack at International Islamic University in Islamabad is just the latest in a series of bold attacks – see here, here, here, here – in the past several weeks. And that list is by no means exhaustive. Terrorism is, among other things, a strategy of imposing costs. And the tactical acumen displayed during some of the recent attacks makes clear the TTP and its allies are fully capable of imposing costs on Pakistan in return for the current offensive into S. Waziristan.

I heard about today's attack on NPR this morning as I was drinking my coffee and scrolling through today’s news. The correspondent, whose name I did not catch, suggested something along the lines of: "along with the spate of recent attacks this one might be the tipping point for the militants." I'm clearly paraphrasing and, to be honest, was only half listening once the report had gone from facts to analysis. Qamar Zaman Kaira, Pakistan’s information minister, expressed a similar sentiment:

"It is a show of their desperation after the military operation in Waziristan. Their real faces are now exposed in front of the nation. The whole nation will have to be united to face them."

I know these are just the types of things people say after an attack and so it's a bit unfair to assail such statements as if they were studies analysis. Nonetheless, I fear like we've heard this all before. The attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team were supposed to be the sign the thing that galvanized Pakistani society. Since, you know, cricket is a pretty sacred activity there.

 

Then the attack on the police training facility outside Lahore was supposed to be the thing that galvanized the police. Then the Taliban’s foray into Buner was supposed to be the thing that galvanized the Army. And, of course, killing Baithullah Mehsud was supposed to be the thing that helped forge a renewed Pakistan-U.S. relationship. Until Kerry-Lugar of course.

I do think that a lot of people in Pakistani society, the police force, the security services and the military are galvanized. The Army is, after all, in the process of invading S. Waziristan. However, forgive my cynicism, I don't think that means the insurgency in Pakistan has jumped the shark just yet. And I'm not quite sure what the citizenry can actually do about that.

First, we have no idea how the operation in S. Waziristan will actually turn out, or what happens if militants decide to set up shop next door in Haqqani-land next door in N. Waziristan. Second, while I am seriously in favor of disrupting the safe haven that exists in the FATA, I do think it is important to keep in mind that groups like JeM and LeJ – which are contributing heavily to these attacks – are Punjabi groups. Yes they operate closely with the TTP in FATA, but they also have networks [and in the case of JeM, physical infrastructure] in Punjab.

Does Pakistan need to do counter-insurgency in the FATA? Absolutely. But it also needs to improve its counter-terrorism capabilities in Punjab, and really throughout the rest of the country. ICG had a couple of pretty good reports last year – here and here – on the structural inadequacies facing Pakistan in this regard. This is not to take anything away from the men and woman who are working hard to prevent these types of attacks.

I know people who work for the Intelligence Bureau and the Anti-Terrorism Force, and they're committed to preventing these types of attacks. However, I'm yet to see the type of structural reforms necessary within the police force and the intelligence agencies necessary to dismantle the networks that make attacks in Pakistan's heartland possible.

For starters, I'm curious if anyone out there knows of improvements or planned improvements in terms of a) better inter-agency intelligence sharing; b) increased funding and training for Pakistani police; or c) increasing capacity within intelligence agencies that are not the ISI.  

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Today gunmen in Pakistan have killed up to 39 people in attacks on the Pakistan security services.

These most recent attacks have seen gunmen storming security installations in Lahore and a suicide bombing in the north-western town of Kohat.

These were allegedly carried out by the Taliban in revenge for the US missile strike that killed their leader Baitullah Mehsud in August of this year. These follow a spate of attacks throughout Pakistan, which are becoming increasingly brazen and have left up to 100 dead in the past two weeks alone.
What is most concerning about these attacks is they are show a resilient response to the death of one of their top commanders, demonstrating their ability to quickly regroup after such a setback. They also suggest the Taliban is becoming increasingly brazen by setting their sights at the security services, rather than the "softer" option of civilian targets.

Furthermore, Lahore and other towns throughout the Punjab had until recently maintained a level of relative stability, but are now increasingly becoming the target of such attacks, with three occurring in Lahore alone this year. Some have suggested that the Punjab is becoming a new front line in Pakistan's fight against militancy. 

As Pakistan's cultural capital, instability in and around Lahore has enormous implications for the rest of the country. A security official in May said, "Whoever wants to destabilise the country or the government, would go after Lahore."

The government's response seems to reiterate this and Interior Minister Rehman Malik has recently been quoted as saying "All roads lead to South Waziristan…now the government has no choice but to launch an offensive."

 

Here is a reminder of the major attacks in Pakistan since Oct. 5 (h/t to The Long War Journal):

Oct. 15, 2009:
Terrorist assault teams attacked the Federal Investigation Agency building, the Manawan police training centre, and the Elite Force Headquarters in Lahore.

Oct. 15, 2009:
A suicide bomber rammed a car into a police station in Kohat, killing eight people, including policemen and children.

Oct. 12, 2009:
A suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives as a military convoy passed through a checkpoint in a market in Alpuri in Shangla. Forty-one people, including six security personnel, were killed in the attack.

Oct. 10, 2009:
An assault team attacked the Army General Headquarters and took 42 security personnel captive. Eleven soldiers were killed, including a brigadier general and a lieutenant colonel, along with nine members of the assault team; and 39 hostages were freed.

Oct. 9, 2009:
A suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives in a bazaar in Peshawar, killing 49 civilians.

Oct. 5, 2009:
A suicide bomber entered the World Food Program office in Islamabad and detonated his vest, killing five UN workers, including an Iraqi.

 

This article was written by Charlie Pembroke

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Ilyas Kashmiri, the operational chief of the Harkat-ul Jihad Islami (HuJI) and al Qaeda's Brigade 313, is still alive it appears.

He was wrongly confirmed dead after the US September 14th airstrike in the village of Turikhel in Taliban-controlled North Waziristan.

Kashmiri was recently listed as the fourth most wanted terrorist by Pakistan's Interior Ministry and is considered by US intelligence to be one of al Qaeda's most dangerous commanders.
Ilyas Kashmiri is thought to have taken part in several terror actions such as last week's assault on Pakistan's Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. 

You can read more about his previous feats of arms here.

Today, Asia Times journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad publishes an interview with Ilyas Kashmiri in which he tells of his strategy for reaching his ultimate goal "the defeat of American global hegemony".

"Should the world expect more Mumbai-like attacks?" asks the reporter. "That was nothing compared to what has already been planned for the future," Ilyas replies.

You can (and should) read the whole interview here.

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Last week Saeed Shah reported on Jaish-e-Mohammad's [JeM] construction of a walled-off 4.5-acre compound three miles outside of Bahawalpur, located in the south of Pakistan's Punjab province.

JeM already has a headquarters and a seminary in the city center. This new facility is much grander. It includes a swimming pool, stable for horses and a playground for children. Gotta love those kid-friendly militants. The compound sounds just like my sleep-away camp, except I have a feeling its riflery range may be a bit more robust.

In all seriousness, this is deeply troubling. Over the past six months Pakistan has made strides in its fight against the TTP and TNSM, two organizations that consistently threatened the state. At the same time there seems to be no sign that a seeming reengagement with militant groups, which appears to have begun in 2008, has abated. Rather, the security services continue to provide – at least – passive support to groups like JeM.

It is likely that support for JeM goes beyond merely tolerance. According to a number of interlocutors I’ve spoken with in Pakistan the group is far more dependent on state assistance than is Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is financially independent. Further, JeM's hands are not nearly as clean as Lashkar's in terms of violence within Pakistan or involvement with al-Qaeda plots against Western countries. It is JeM’s involvement in such plots that makes the compound in Bahawalpur so troubling.

The site could serve multiple purposes. First and foremost, it could probably be used for training. At the very least, this could include indoctrination. More worrying is that unlike the many guerrilla warfare camps in the mountains, this compound will be used to provide the types of skills needed for urban terrorism. These include not only bomb making, but also reconnaissance and other intelligence-related skills.

Second, according to Shah's report, Bahawalpur serves as an "R&R" safe haven for jihadists battling in Afghanistan. They can rest up far away from the FATA, where militants must be more mindful of U.S. unmanned aerial drones. This means it can also serve as a hub for networking among current and would-be jihadis, which provides another type of functionality: a meeting point for Westerners seeking access to al-Qaeda.

In the past JeM and LeT were valuable to al-Qaeda because of what is called the "Kashmiri Escalator." A disproportionate number of British Pakistanis are of Kashmiri decent and those interested in making contact with a militant group often can employ familial connections in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir to find their ways to Lashkar or JeM.

Recruits procure training from one of the two groups, after which some of them are passed on to al-Qaeda operatives who are often in the FATA. In 2009 British security officials estimated that approximately 4,000 people were trained in this way since 9/11 and accounted for three quarters of the serious terrorist plots the UK faced. Westerners in search of training in the FATA now have another jumping off point to get there.

I'm still a proponent of staying in Afghan because I believe it is important to deny al-Qaeda safe haven there as well as to degrade the capacity of al-Qaeda and its allies to destabilize Pakistan. It appears al-Qaeda Central's power in FATA may be attenuating and fissures may be developing with the Afghan Taliban. If remaining in Afghanistan is necessary to keep things moving in that direction, then I'm still on board with the mission.

But developments such as this one give me pause. The Obama Administration recently released its metrics for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Objective 2b is 'Develop Pakistan's counterinsurgency (COIN) capabilities; continue to support Pakistan's efforts to defeat terrorist and insurgent groups.' One of the metrics involved in measuring success is 'Extent of militant-controlled areas in Pakistan.'

JeM is a banned organization and known to be a close al-Qaeda ally. Indeed it is historically closer to al-Qaeda than LeT. JeM operatives have been involved in a number of plots against the West, and more than a few in Pakistan as well. Bahawalpur is not S. Waziristan. It's not ungoverned space. This militant-controlled area exists in the country’s heartland and is being developing in full view of the authorities.

Enormous sacrifices are being made to keep Afghanistan free from al-Qaeda and its allies. Meanwhile, next-door some of those same allies are building away in the seemingly safest of havens.

On a completely unrelated matter, I've been absent from FREErad!cals for too long. A summer associate position at RAND and a book deadline pretty much devoured my entire summer. Blogging suffered as a result. My apologies for that. The summer gig is now over and last week I turned in a draft manuscript for Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba. So I plan to get back to blogging here at least once a week.

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Among the many tough choices that must be made about how to bring stability to Afghanistan and Pakistan the decision to target Baitullah Mehsud was low-hanging fruit. He was responsible for the deaths of countless Pakistanis and under his leadership the TTP threatened the stability of the state. Although his survival was a source of friction between Pakistan and the U.S., Baitullah was also a target both sides could agree was a threat. Killing him was a shared operational priority, worthy of an American breach of sovereignty by way of hellfire missile. One hopes that his death will be a confidence building measure in the Pakistan-U.S. partnership, but the two countries still have divergent strategic priorities and future targets are likely to prove harder to agree upon.

In the event he is really dead (uncertainty still remains) his death will have an impact at an operational level on the TTP. But even this should not be overstated. In the short term his death will degrade the TTP’s unity, making it a less effective force in the short term. Early reports indicate a power struggle might be underway between Hakimullah Mehsud and Waliur Rehman, who are two of Baitullah’s would-be successors. At least one of those men, Waliur Rehman, has denied this. Either way the Pakistani Taliban’s insurgency has always been marked by separateness and togetherness, though it has become more unified recently. On the whole disunity is probably a net plus, but even if the movement returns to a splintered state the actors involved are still a threat on both sides of the Durand line. This is not just a Mehsud family affair and is too complex for one man’s death to unravel it. Recall that Nek Mohammed’s death did not prove to be the Pakistani Taliban’s undoing, but instead paved the way for Baitullah’s emergence who also tangled with fellow commanders.

Competition could also drive additional attacks against Pakistani targets, though its not as if the TTP needs a whole lot more motivation to attack the state. Nonetheless, one of the bits of information I was struck by most when in Pakistan a few months ago was the fact that some militants were attempting to “outbid” one another in terms of the level of attacks they could deliver. As different actors compete for power – at the top and mid levels – attempts to outdo one another might increase violence against the Pakistani state in the short-term.

Of course, it is also possible that if a new leader emerges who can keep the TTP united that he could decide to ratchet back on attacks within Pakistan and refocus on the Afghan jihad. Baitullah’s death aside, the Pakistani Taliban have had an uneven year. They were a whole lot more popular on the home front when killing Coalition forces next door. With the Afghan jihad humming along, one wonders: will the TTP shift focus and, if so, how will the Pakistani state respond?

This operation may have bolstered the Pakistan-U.S. relationship and helped the latter improve its reputation as a team player. But it is highly questionable whether the quid pro quo will result in Pakistan passing along Mullah Omar’s coordinates. There are early rumblings that this could pave the way for cooperation against the Haqqani Network, but action there probably depends as much [or more] on the state of its relationship with Pakistan than on Pakistan’s relationship with U.S. In short, it remains to be seen whether there will be a strategic shift in Pakistan’s behavior vis-à-vis those actors who Washington considers enemies and Islamabad considers assets in Afghanistan. Hopefully this operation not only will disrupt TTP unity, but also help increase cooperation between the U.S and Pakistan. Confidence by both sides in their relationship is important since future decisions will not be so easy to agree upon.

Finally, at the risk of wading into the drone strike debate when I’m about to bump up against a self-imposed word limit: they may be degrading al-Qaeda’s capability to strike Western countries and making some militants uneasy, but they are not a solution for the problem in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. I’m not as orthodox on this as some and do see their value. Taking out targets like Baitullah Mehsud is a net plus even if it has to happen via hellfire missile. If serious infighting results from his death then this would be a prime example of how operational action that can produce strategic results. But the insurgency built strength over a long period of time. Defeating it could take even longer and won’t happen via remote-controlled aircraft alone.



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... doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. For example, using air power to try to defeat an insurgency.

I'm already on record saying I think that rushing into S. Waziristan before Swat is secure is a bad idea. And by secure I mean knowing that Pakistani forces are able to hold the area and enable refugees to return while ensuring militants do not. Refugees may be returning, but it is far from certain that it is actually safe for them to do so.

On the plus side, the army has pledged to keep a presence in Swat for a year. Though exactly what that means I'm not certain. But as Saed Shah reported over the weekend, Pakistan is anxious that its forces not be overextended, a danger from an all-out Waziristan offensive.

Hmm… yeah, I could see how the Army might be nervous about that.  Presumably, the Army could commit more troops to the fight. Or maybe hold off on the S. Waziristan operation until it could take a comprehensive approach. But according to Shah the Pakistani Army has come up with another solution… bomb their way to victory.

The operation is unlikely to destroy the enemy, however, and will leave in place some Taliban warlords whom the United States and its NATO allies in Afghanistan regard as a significant cross-border threat. It will raise questions about the seriousness of Pakistan's fight against insurgents after the country won international praise for its concerted efforts in Swat.

 

"The nature of the operation is totally different from what we did in Swat," said a senior Pakistani security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "It is just blocking the entrance. Nothing goes in, nothing comes out. We'll keep punishing (the enemy) with long arms, air (power), Cobra (helicopters).
    
…

"It won't be the army physically moving and attacking, with your combat power dwindling with each passing day, and the need to put in additional" troops, the security official said, adding that the military couldn't afford to open up more than one front.

To be fair to Pakistan it took America quite a while to (re)figure out COIN in Iraq. And it's taking even longer in Afghanistan, where the U.S. is still trying to get its act together. So it's not like I think we're such geniuses as this. But if they understand what is necessary (and Swat indicates they might) then regressing to an enemy-centric approach in S. Waziristan is all the more baffling.

 

I understand the desire to do something about militants who are savaging the country. But knocking over a bunch of buildings, (probably) wracking up a lot of civilian casualties and maybe clipping a militant here or there is not going to solve the problem.

 

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A week ago Zainuddin Mehsud was going to bring peace to the land. If you define peace as defeating Baitullah Mehsud so that everyone could focus on fighting the infidels in Afghanistan. He was, in other words, a good jihadi in the eyes of the Pakistani government, which (perhaps not surprisingly) distinguishes between people who want to fight inside the country and those preferring to do their killing next door. It seems that Pakistan still believes that it’s better to send a proxy to do the Army’s job.

Protecting that proxy… well, that’s a different story. One common refrain in some of the MSM coverage yesterday is summed up here:

The killing called into question the government’s strategy of exploiting tribal fissures in order to defeat Mr. Mehsud and was apparently intended to serve as a reminder that there were serious consequences for crossing him, analysts said.
'It tells people, if you side with the government, this is what will happen to you,' said Talat Masood, a retired general and a military analyst. 'It says the government can’t give you protection, but the other side can.'

Do people in the FATA really need a reminder?  I mean, isn’t it pretty clear that the neither the Pakistani Army nor the Police have your back?  Joshua Foust made this point yesterday about as well as it could be made.

To me, there are two larger issues here than the fact that you can’t rely on the Pakistani state for protection.

First, I’m bothered by this belief that there is some non-state actor our there that is going to do the state’s job for it. I’m not suggesting that Pakistan should not seek to build and exploit local alliances, though this is probably going to make that even more difficult for them to do. But I am suggesting that the belief that proxies can do this job for them is misguided… and what helped get us here in the first place.

Second, having Zainuddin on side was all well and good in terms of dealing with Baitullah and the TTP. I understand the concept of triage and prioritization in these situations. My concern is that I’m not convinced there was a plan for what comes next. Or for that matter, even an intention for there to be a sustained campaign post-Baitullah.

Color me cynical, but this whole episode smacked of short-term tactical objectives with no plan for long-term, sustained and strategic follow-through.

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I'm not opposed to Richard Holbrooke touring a refugee camp. Every little bit helps in terms of boosting America's image in Pakistan right now. And I'm heartened to read things like the following:

In meetings with Pakistan's government, military, judiciary and political opposition leaders, he pressed the message that getting the refugees back home safely was as crucial, and perhaps even more immediately important, as the ongoing military offensive. Temporary refugee camps tend quickly to become permanent, he argued. They are breeding grounds for public dissatisfaction and recruitment centers for extremists; getting people out of them is key to building confidence in the government.

But is it me or does anyone else think it's problematic that the man responsible for America's Afghanistan and Pakistan policy was making pit stops on his way through the camp looking for information to 'take home to U.S. intelligence analysts and White House policymakers'. Is the U.S. mission in Pakistan that short-staffed?

Because I come pretty cheap and I'm more than happy to go traipsing around the country-side asking people about how the Taliban recruits in their village if that'll free up his time for policy-making and stuff.

Also, I understand building rapport with an interview subject can be difficult, but talk about an awkward moment:

Holbrooke asked some questions about the Taliban but got few answers. 'Are these all your children?' he asked with a smile. Yes, Khan said, he had nine.

'Your daughter is beautiful,' Holbrooke continued, nodding toward a young woman who sat quietly at the edge of the family. Her head was covered in a royal-blue scarf that revealed only her stunningly dark eyes.

'That's not my daughter,' Khan said abruptly. After an awkward silence, the woman explained that she was a Pakistani police officer. It was unclear whether she was there to protect Holbrooke from the refugees, or to monitor what they told him.

In other news, Islamabad is going ahead and wading into S. Waziristan. For the record, not much has changed in terms of my view about this since yesterday.

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Should Islamabad hurry up and bring the fight to the motley crew in S. Waziristan? Nick Schmidle thinks that's a bad idea as does Andrew Exum over at abumuqawama, who beat this blog by at least a day in linking to Schmidle's piece… but given that we just launched like 5 minutes ago (and I just started a new job) let's chalk that up to growing pains. In any event… I tend to agree.

In trying to work out my own thinking on it, I made myself a little good idea / bad idea chart. The good idea / bad idea chart approach is a favorite of one of my wife’s friends who runs a day camp. Whenever a kid ends up in her office for doing something bad, she holds up a piece of oak tag with good idea on one side and bad idea on the other.

Now it's not that I don't appreciate nuanced grey areas – I love to build myself a wall and sit on top of it as much as the next PhD student – but if I ever get a policy job there is no doubt I’ll have that chart hanging in my office.

Good Idea

1. The army is finally engaging and has pretty good success in Swat. More importantly, they seem to have learned a thing or two about how to fight this kind of war. A friend of mine went out there to survey the collateral damage last week and said it looks like they've managed to avoid flattening the place.

And when I was there during the beginning of the offensive, the reports I was hearing indicated that the army was trying to avoid falling back on overwhelming and indiscriminate force. While we shouldn't be inducting the army into the COIN (counterinsurgency) Hall of Fame just yet, they do seem to be improving. So the momentum is there… and in an insurgency, I'm told that is something you don't want to waste.

2. A significant number of the people involved in the violence savaging the rest of Pakistan are either working from, or working with people in, S. Waziristan. Ultimately, putting a stop to the terrorism now savaging the rest of the country is going to require going into S. Waziristan. And the longer Islamabad waits, the longer those attacks go on.

3. The population appears as if it might be primed for this offensive, and given its past history Islamabad should probably avoid looking like it is decided to roll over. When I was there in May the Army was saying it was going into S. Waziristan by June, though Abbas has done a good job of walking back off that particular talking point.

Nonetheless, as attacks escalate in the rest of Pakistan there will be increasing pressure to deal with the people responsible… and a lot of them are in S. Waziristan.

Bad Idea

1. As Schmidle pointed out, S. Waziristan ain't Swat. And it's not like Swat was exactly a cake-walk. More importantly, it's also not over yet. Yes the Army has done a decent job of clearing the area of militants, and of doing so without actually destroying every house in the neighborhood.

But clearing is the easy part, and something the Army has been able to do before. Based on some of the conversations I've had recently with folks on the ground, at least some Pakistani officers are well aware that many of the militants simply melted away. Now they need to hold the area, begin returning refugees to their homes and protect them once they're back.

2. And speaking of refugees… as anyone who picked up a newspaper in the last month knows, Swat created an enormous IDP (internally displaced people) crisis. Which Pakistan really needs to focus on fixing. For so many reasons. First, there is the obvious fact that the level of human misery is high. And all strategy aside, dealing with that is a moral imperative. Second, failing to do so would be a pretty good way to lose popular support. Third, beyond needing to get its governance on in order to maintain the support of its own population this is also a good opportunity for Islamabad to show the rest of the world it can, you know, actually take care of its people. Fourth, refugee camps = militant recruiting grounds. Just ask the guys from Lashkar-e-Taiba… I mean Jamaat-ud-Dawa… no sorry, I meant Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF). I’m told the first thing a refugee fleeing from the fighting sees when he/she comes to the camps in Mardan is a guy waving the LeT/JuD flag.

3. I think its great the Zardari and Sing are supposed to make nice to one another tomorrow (or today or yesterday depending on when this runs), but I’m doubtful that anything said at the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) summit is going to convince the Pakistani army to start pulling its forces off the eastern front in any great numbers.* I believe the Pakistanis are serious about 'getting serious' with the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan). But I'm also inclined to believe their officer corps when they tell me that India is still the long-term existential threat and that any reinforcements for the fight against militancy will probably come from the garrisons and not the Eastern front.

And that's what they were saying to me a month ago… when the cameras weren't rolling. They were also saying that technology is the answer to counter-insurgency, not doctrine or training. Which just made me sad all day. But long story short, it is unclear that the military is entirely prepared for what an invasion of S. Waziristan would entail.

4. And, according to Sabrina Tavernise and Pir Zubair Shah over at the NYT, the militants do seem to be getting prepared.

Mr. Mehsud now has thousands of fighters entrenched in mountain terrain that is nearly impossible for conventional armies to navigate, and past efforts to capture him, most recently last year, have failed. … Fighters loyal to Baitullah Mehsud have been moving into the area from elsewhere in Pakistan to fortify it. Commanders are dividing responsibilities, designating fighters for bomb making and remote detonation, said a fighter who spoke by telephone from the area.

5. The mission itself seems unclear. Are they going after militancy in S. Waziristan or just its most famous militant? The TTP is an umbrella organization and beneath that umbrella it's fractious. So would killing or capturing Baitullah be a good thing?  Yeah. So would killing bin Laden, but that's not going to stop your AQ problem.

And yes, I realize that analogy only goes so far since bin Laden is far more influential outside of Pakistan and even less hands on operationally inside Pakistan. But my point is that it's not like the TTP is some sort of uber-hierarchical organization you can just decapitate and suddenly it falls apart and people start going home.

5a. The mission itself seems unclear. Part Deux. As the Tavernise and Pir point out, the military won a hard fought victory in Bajaur not so long ago and the militants are back there today. As Talat Massood, who is a seriously astute observer of Pakistan and all-around one of the good guys, made clear in the Times piece: that is because they failed to establish effective local governance structures afterwards. I'm not all that comforted by the idea that success can be declared if they nail Baitullah and his supporters.

So yeah… I can see the arguments for why S. Waziristan makes sense right now, but they fall short of convincing me this is not a bad idea. Because even if Pakistan clears out S. Waziristan – and that is a big if – I'm not yet confident they can keep it militant-free and develop lasting governance structures that work. And I'm even more concerned about what happens to the internally displaced population and the gains they've made elsewhere in the meantime.

* I'm actually not being flip. I think it's great that they are going to hold talks even if that really only amounts to a sideline meeting.

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