The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2008

tary and diplomatic representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan and coalition forces in Afghanistan — have con- tributed effectively to soothing the tensions. They do not, however, suppress the fundamental security dilemma Pakistan faces in its relations with its weaker neighbor. At the same time, it would be a mistake to treat Pakistan’s current support to the Taliban as a simple replay of the 1990s. Although its objectives are evolving along with the Afghan situation itself, Islamabad is no longer try- ing to take control of its neighbor through its Afghan proxy. Rather, it is trying at once to pressure the current government in Kabul, ensure a robust American and international presence, and prepare for a post-U.S. Afghanistan. In such a context, the Taliban remains a use- ful instrument that Islamabad can manipulate at will and is unlikely to give up. The Pakistani Taliban A new phenomenon, the emergence of a Taliban movement in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, raises a series of new questions. It is not clear whether the movement is sui generis or the result of Pakistan’s own involvement in Afghan affairs. Many observers describe the Pakistani movement as a simple extension of its Afghan counterpart and see its emergence in Pakistan as evidence of a fundamentalist push in the region that threatens an already fragile Pakistani polity and, with it, the stability of the entire region. The Pakistani Taliban arose in a gradual process made possible by the oscillation between military operations and “peace agreements” in the area from 2004 to 2006. The former provided the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies with local support that would have been more difficult to mobilize otherwise; the latter gave them the opportunity to reorganize and extend their networks. One group, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, deserves particular attention, not merely because it was held responsible by the Pakistani government for the Decem- ber 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (although its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, denied any responsibility). More importantly, this organization now seems to control the entire Taliban movement in Pakistan. The TTP’s main objectives are to enforce Sharia (Islamic law), unite against NATO forces in Afghanistan and per- form defensive jihad against the Pakistan army. Although its name was not new, the group surfaced in its present form last December. Essentially an umbrella organization, it has regrouped existing local militant for- mations covering a vast geographic area, including all of the FATA’s seven tribal agencies and a number of districts in the settled areas of the NWFP. Today the TTP is said to have some 5,000 combatants, although it remains diffi- cult to assess its real strength. Local youth sometimes join the militants as a way of earning a living or enhancing their social importance and power, according to reports by the International Crisis Group. Current estimates of the insurgents’ strength are sharply higher than those of a year earlier. In December 2006, the ICG estimated the total number of militants in the FATA at about 1,100: 100 hardened foreign fanatics and 1,000 local accomplices. There were 25 to 35 local militant groups in North and South Waziristan. The phe- nomenon clearly took a new turn in 2007, with the net- working of the many small militant groups operating in the FATA, who were, in turn, soon joined by many other extremist groups banned in Pakistan. Because the October 2005 Pakistan earthquake exposed their training camps, militants belonging to orga- nizations of national importance such as the Jaish-e- Mohammad or the Lashkar-e-Toiba, heavily trained in guerilla operations by the Pakistani military for operations in Kashmir, also found their way to the FATA. Displaced by the ISI and relocated to the FATA and NWFP, where they were supposed to be less visible, they escaped the control of their sponsors and soon found themselves fight- ing the Pakistani military. One Taliban, or Two? The TTP’s link with the organization of Taliban Supreme Leader Mullah Omar in Afghanistan is unclear. The decrease in the number of attacks against NATO forces in Afghanistan since 2007 is sometimes attributed to the TTP engagement in Pakistan, as if the guerrillas on the two sides of the border were one movement. But this does not constitute evidence of any unity of command. The organizations that comprise the TTP certainly support and are inspired by the Afghan Taliban. Former commanders such as the late Nek Mohammad and Abdullah Mehsud participated in the jihad against the Soviets, and later resisted the Northern Alliance. Yet organizational links were always thin and remain limited today. This is not to dispute the claim, articulated by Harvard’s Hassan Abbas in the January CTC Sentinel , the online monthly of West Point’s Combating Terrorism F O C U S J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43