TRIBAL AREAS AND TERRORISTS

The Battle for Control of Pakistan

By Susanne Koelbl and Gabor Steingart

05/04/2009 05:19 PM

The Taliban's advances into the heartland of Pakistan have alarmed the West. How close are the extremists to acquiring nuclear warheads? The Americans have urged the Pakistanis to put aside their differences with India and pursue militant Islamists on their own soil.

Is it worth returning home, now that there is perhaps peace, but no longer freedom? Building contractor Mahmud Khan wanted to know the answer. A few days after an agreement was made allowing the Taliban to instate Islamic law, or Sharia, in return for finally consenting to "a permanent cease-fire," Khan jumped into his Jeep and headed for northwestern Pakistan's Swat Valley. This region was once a popular tourist destination known for its picturesque mountain landscapes and the cosmopolitan outlook of its inhabitants, who often hosted honeymooners from Islamabad. Now the Swat Valley is a key stronghold for the militant Islamists who are threatening all of Pakistan.

On the valley road, past the large city of Mingora -- beyond the tobacco fields, the buzzing beehives of the honey producers and the sparse forests -- Khan was stopped by a group of armed men. One of them was his former servant, Ahmed.

Until last year, the young man had brought tea and firewood to the affluent building contractor every day. Now he wore a black turban and carried a Kalashnikov, the barrel of which he pressed against the rolled-down window of the vehicle. "Brother, have you returned? Allahu Akbar! Do you want to live with us now according to the laws of the holy Prophet?" he asked with a sneer. Like so many other simple Pakistanis, the domestic servant had followed the call of the Taliban to send their masters packing and join the Islamic warriors.

Following this encounter, Khan realized that it had become impossible to return to the Swat Valley. His family had lived there for five generations. Now he decided to flee for good. Over the past few weeks, tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced by fighting in the region.

The onslaught of the Taliban is threatening the stability of Pakistan -- a nuclear power that at the same time holds the key to the tragedy in Afghanistan. The conflict on the other side of the border cannot be contained as long as the Taliban militants can gather in the Pakistani frontier region, and use it as a haven to launch attacks.

This explains why Pakistan, at least according to the Americans, is so crucial -- why this country, where the Taliban and al-Qaida work hand-in-hand, will determine not only its neighboring country's future, but also its own, along with the fate of the entire Western world.

US President Barack Obama has made safeguarding the tense region between Kabul and Islamabad the top priority of his foreign policy. The extremely weak civilian government in Islamabad and its lack of resolve is cause for "grave concern," the commander in chief said a few days before Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's visit to Washington, where Obama will receive him together with Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a mini-summit on Wednesday.

Borderline Panic

The mood is one of borderline panic in Washington these days when conversation turns to Pakistan. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the possibly crumbling state poses "a mortal threat" to the world: "I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists." These fears were echoed by her special representative to the region, Richard Holbrooke: "Pakistan is in an emergency situation." And the "collapse of the state" is likely to happen within six months, warns David Kilcullen, an influential counter-terrorism advisor to the US military.

On Tuesday of last week the US National Security Council held an unscheduled meeting under the leadership of its chairman, General James Jones. The only topic on the agenda was the situation in Pakistan.

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The border regions

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, has made a number of trips to Pakistan to get a first-hand impression of the situation, which he says has "steadily deteriorated" over the past few months. Mullen says Pakistan needs to be "more aggressive" in confronting the danger. In other words, the US wants the Taliban not only to be driven back, but defeated.

But that's out of the question. The peace agreement with the militant Islamists in the Swat Valley -- an attempt by a powerless government to buy itself a little time -- has failed to stem the process of Talibanization in the country. On the contrary, the extremists continue to expand their area of influence. They are pushing their way into the heartland of Pakistan and infiltrating large cities like Karachi and Lahore with their terror. And the Pakistani army still appears to be astonishingly reserved in its efforts to combat the Taliban.

An ostensibly broad offensive with artillery and helicopter gunships was launched last week, aimed at driving the Taliban from the Buner and Lower Dir districts. But the men in black turbans often merely evade such operations, only to return shortly thereafter. Their cronies stay behind to recruit supporters and report when the time is right for a new offensive.

The police and the army in Swat, if they are present at all, rarely dare to venture beyond their precinct buildings. The Taliban patrol the streets.

What the state fails to deliver, the religious hard-liners can rapidly organize -- based on a frighteningly efficient system. The valley is divided into a large number of small commando and administrative zones. Every village has a radio-equipped commander, with two dozen Taliban under his command. A network of informers assures a continuous flow of reconnaissance.

The Taliban are arresting and interrogating at will, apparently without any real criteria. "It's pure chance whether you're released or killed," says a resident of the settlement of Charbagh. And the commander of Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, has even extended an invitation to Osama bin Laden. "We will protect him," was the message he told his spokesman to disseminate.

The Nuclear Threat

Will the assailants who launch the next attack on America or Europe be trained in the former ski paradise of Swat? Is it possible that the Taliban will advance on the capital and thus gain access to nuclear weapons?

The politicians and generals in Islamabad view this as a ridiculous notion. They see the West as hysterical, or cynical, or both. Aocalyptic rhetoric from Washington is only intended to increase pressure on Afghanistan, says the government in Islamabad.

"We are reacting adequately and understand the situation in our country better than the rest of the world," President Zardari told SPIEGEL last week. But he didn't say how he intends to stop the advance of the Islamic warriors. Like his predecessor, General Pervez Musharraf, Zardari has largely failed to produce successes in the fight against the Islamists.

There may be a simple and astonishing explanation for this. A British regional expert with top intelligence agency connections recently told an exclusive circle of members of parliament in London: "The ally Pakistan does not share our interests." He said Islamabad "is antipathic to Karzai's government and to any administration in Afghanistan which is indulgent of Indian influence. Pakistan thus wants the end of Karzai, a pro-Pakistani Pashtun government in Afghanistan and wants the British, the Americans and NATO out of Afghanistan."

Religious Fanatics as a Natural Partner

Since the foundation of the state of Pakistan, the army has been the dominant political force in the country, and has never severed its traditional links with militant Islamists. Given its constant focus on its arch-enemy India, with which they fought three wars and could ally itself with Afghanistan once the Americans retreat, Pakistan still views the religious fanatics as a natural partner. The country's notorious intelligence agency, ISI, which once supported the foundation of the Taliban movement, still harbors sympathies for the radicals. And the ISI does its best to avoid marring relations with hard-liners and the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, and his Afghan comrade-in-arms Mullah Omar, who both operate out of Pakistan.

Pakistani courts have not publicly convicted a single prominent Islamist since 2001. Only a few days ago, the Supreme Court granted bail to the hard-line cleric who led Islamabad's Red Mosque. Maulana Abdul Aziz spent nearly two years under house arrest and still faces 26 charges, including kidnapping, abetting murder and inciting violence against the state.

The charges stem from events in the summer of 2007, when Aziz and his brother stirred up the students of his Koran school near the government quarter, calling on them to fight against the state justicial system. Women wearing black veils kidnapped alleged prostitutes and destroyed CD shops, libraries and hair salons. Over 100 students and Aziz's brother died in violent clashes when the army stormed the complex. The armed Islamic students, for their part, killed roughly a dozen security officials.

The showdown at the Red Mosque also coincided with the Taliban's rise to power in Swat. Local Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah vowed to mount an armed jihad against the government in revenge for the killing of the students. In the wake of the military operation at the Koran school, many students fled to Swat and took refuge among the Taliban.

Apparently the firebrand cleric Aziz has now adopted a slightly softer tone. But he still stands by his convictions. He continues to view stoning, whipping and chopping off hands for adultery and theft as the "best education" for the faithful. "We punish in public -- everyone can learn from that," said the thin man with a quiet voice. His Red Mosque in the heart of Islamabad is more popular than ever.

Along with the US, Pakistan's former colonial power Great Britain is going to great lengths to persuade President Zardari to put aside his country's differences with India and take up the fight against the Taliban. Roughly 1.6 million Muslims live in the UK, roughly half of whom come from Pakistan. Some 16,000 Muslims, primarily young men, are thought to be potential supporters of terror networks.

Pakistan has lived in a state of constant threat ever since the country's bloody birth from the smaller, majority Muslim part of British India nearly 62 years ago. Aside from a few short-lived phases of fragile democracy, the country has yet to emerge from its crisis. The country is still smarting today from the violent loss of East Pakistan in 1971, which became Bangladesh. Even in neighboring Kabul, a number of members of the government see Pakistan as a superfluous artificial entity that, as a hotbed of terrorism, would ideally disappear off the global map.

The successful detonation of its first nuclear bomb 11 years ago represented a key step for Pakistan in its bid to counter all attacks on its right to exist. Pride in this technology is one of the few achievements that unite this otherwise strife-torn country.

This Islamic bomb, though, causes a painful "international migraine" that former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright refers to on occasion. American experts are concerned primarily with two possible crises. First, armed conflict with India -- a sworn enemy and fellow nuclear power -- would move the nuclear missiles toward the front, where they would become highly dangerous.

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The border regions

The second nightmare scenario involves so-called sleepers smuggled into laboratories by extremist groups. According to the New York Times Magazine, American intelligence agencies informed their government in 2008 about Pakistani scientists who were trained abroad and had returned to their home country to look for work in the nuclear industry. These jobseekers reportedly include radical Islamists who are penetrating the circle of some 2,000 experts in Pakistan with access to relevant information on the multi-stage security system of the nuclear arsenal.

But Pakistan's key vulnerability may not actually lie with the security system for its nuclear warheads. A greater threat to the 166 million Pakistanis appears to emanate from the country's immeasurably corrupt society, with its stark class differences. The rich elite ignore the miseries of the poor, and there is no compulsory education or functioning judiciary or health-care system. This makes society's underprivileged particularly receptive to any form of attention, even from the otherwise dreaded Islamists. The militants at least offer income and opportunities to rise through the ranks. The social services of the radicals are almost as well organized as those offered by the country's other main concentration of power -- the military.

'The Biggest Threat'

Residents in the Swat Valley region used to have to pay up to 15,000 rupees to initiate court proceedings, more than twice the monthly salary of a civil servant and the equivalent of over €140 ($186). It was not unusual for them to wait as long as four years for a decision. The door was wide open to corruption.

Now a butcher who sells old meat is punished in public with 35 cane lashes. A farmer whose land is stolen by a rival is given justice because a Taliban commander picks up the phone and tells the accused that he will have to bear "the consequences."

To pay their fighters, the Taliban are tapping new resources. Near Mingora and in Shamozai they have seized government emerald mines. They pocket one-third of the output themselves, and two-thirds is distributed to the workers, who have received a significant raise. Before the Islamists arrived, the wood mafia controlled all the forests in the Swat Valley. Now the profits are being redistributed. Many landowners have already left the region.

By contrast, the powerful army is more concerned with pursuing its own business deals than with protecting the Pakistanis from Islamist aggressors. The military is the biggest market player in the country. Generals buy and sell real estate, occupy top positions in think tanks and manage large export companies. Their children attend army-owned schools and occasionally play on squash courts that are paved with marble.

The military intends to hold onto these sinecures. This also explains the latest army offensive against the Taliban in the run-up to President Zardari's visit in Washington -- it was aimed at placating the Americans, who have backed Pakistan with almost $10 billion in military aid since 2001.

But it remained unconvincing. The US president himself addressed the issue last Wednesday evening. He sounded determined and not particularly conciliatory. In the East Room of the White House, at a press conference marking his first 100 days in office, he reiterated the fundamental principles of his Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy. Obama said: "We need to help Pakistan help the Pakistanis." He meant bolstering the civil government.

Then Obama addressed the heart of the matter -- the military component. Here he expected the army to focus more on the threat from militant extremists. He said the government in Islamabad had been misguided by its "obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan," adding that the "biggest threat now comes internally."

Obama also implied that there would be consequences if Pakistan's government continued to drag its feet with the Islamists. He said the US wants to respect Pakistani sovereignty, but that America also has huge strategic and national security interests in making sure that Pakistan remains stable.

Could this "making sure" also entail direct military intervention in Pakistan? Had the president just threatened to go to war if the Taliban continued to advance and the Pakistani nuclear arsenal was no longer sufficiently secured? The president refused to make a direct comment on this worst-case scenario, saying, "I'm not going to engage in hypotheticals of that sort."

In any case, the Obama administration has asked Congress for a massive increase in military aid to Pakistan. This package would focus on training for Pakistani anti-terror units, cooperation among intelligence agencies, and expanding its own military activities with the help of unmanned drones and intelligence activities on Pakistani soil.

This last aspect is particularly controversial: In a white paper made available to politicians and think tanks, special envoy Holbrooke writes that he hopes US intelligence agencies can use pacified areas to plan ways to step up their efforts to track and kill al-Qaida leaders. According to this plan, the CIA and anti-terror units of the US Army would also rely on cooperation with regional religious leaders, private armies and all types of local security forces.

The new strategy is accompanied by a major reshuffling of funds. Since the attacks on the World Trade Center, over $170 billion has been spent in Afghanistan on the Pentagon's "Operation Enduring Freedom." During the same period, the US invested hardly more than $15 billion in Pakistan.

This shift in policy marks a significant increase in the amount of money flowing to Islamabad. The plan is for project groups to push ahead with the construction of schools, courts and medical clinics, focusing primarily on areas affected by the Taliban. The White House hopes this will gain political support for the military operations.

"This is the war we must win," Obama said over and over during the election campaign -- and he's still repeating it, like a personal mantra.

With additional reporting by Zulfiqar Ali. Translated from the German by Paul Cohen.