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tary and diplomatic representatives from Afghanistan,
Pakistan and coalition forces in Afghanistan — have contributed
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 trying
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 useful
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 December
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 perform
defensive jihad against the Pakistan army.
Although its name was not new, the group surfaced in
its present form last December. Essentially an umbrella
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organization, it has regrouped existing local militant formations
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 difficult
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 phenomenon
clearly took a new turn in 2007, with the networking
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 organizations
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 fighting
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
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