Pakistan has accepted short-term defeat and risked the wrath of its US allies for long-term strategic gains by giving in to militant tribesmen backing al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, an analyst said yesterday.
"It is a tactical retreat," retired army general Talat Masood said of the amnesty granted to five hardcore tribal fighters who have been supporting up to 600 mainly Chechen and Uzbek fighters linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
PHOTO: AP
"The Pakistani authorities did not want military confrontation because they would not be achieving their political objectives: to open up the tribal areas, make it more transparent and establish the writ of the state," he said.
"For that you need the cooperation of the tribes there, and you also want continuous access so that it doesn't turn again into a sanctuary for terrorists or narcotics peddlars," he said.
The amnesties were granted by Pakistan's military in an elaborate ceremony in a remote village in Pakistan's semi-autonomous northwest tribal region on the border with Afghanistan on Saturday.
The tribesmen, led by Nek Mohammad, a former Taliban commander from a hardcore Pashtun subtribe, had been the target of army offensives including a disastrous 12-day operation last month. They have topped a government wanted list since January.
Many of the foreign fighters they have been sheltering are believed to have been slipping across the border to kill US and Afghan targets in Afghanistan over the past year.
Under the agreement between the rebel tribesmen and Pakistani authorities, they will be allowed to stay in the region if they sign pledges to lay down their arms and cease armed activities.
Masood said that bringing the tribesmen on side was critical to redressing what has been the Pakistani army's Achilles' heel: lack of human intelligence.
"The most important thing is establishing human intelligence," he said. "The objective is to ... ensure that the tribes are unable to indulge in activities against the interests of the state and to bring them closer to mainstream politics, integrate them with the rest of the country."
US forces in Afghanistan, who have been trying to seal the border against militants infiltrating from Pakistani sanctuaries to attack aid workers, troops and government targets, are "livid" at the deal, according to Western diplomats.
"These Chechens and Uzbeks are not innocent farmers left over from the mujahidin wars [against Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers in the 1980s] who've got stranded in the region and married local girls," an Islamabad-based diplomat said.
"They've been running over the border killing people. Nek Mohammad and his men have been supplying them arms, giving them sanctuary. Nek Mohammad is probably indirectly responsible for hundreds of deaths in Afghanistan," the diplomat said.
Masood said the US military was likely to be "uncertain" about the deal.
"Because they would not know as to how it would ultimately figure out, but from a Pakistani perspective I think it has been a good agreement," he said.
Pakistani forces had probably learnt from the failures of the US military's "guns blazing" approach in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I think they would have been inspired by the US approach to the operation in both Afghanistan and Iraq," Masood said. "I think they are trying to now use the political instrument for achieving their goals rather than using the military as the centerpiece."
Masood said a key difference between the US and the Pakistani military's approaches was that the Pakistanis were operating on home turf.
"Pakistan is operating in its own territory, whereas the US [is] operating in someone else's territory, so they [can't] use the same approach," he said.
Pakistan's largest-ever offensive against al-Qaeda-linked fighters last month failed to capture any significant militant leaders but resulted in the deaths of at least 46 troops, 15 civilians and 63 militants.
Scores of homes were also destroyed, and anti-military resentment spread among the 4 million tribesmen who live in the seven fiercely independent tribal districts hugging the border.
"The military operation was a failure. But they're turning that military setback into something at least politically acceptable," Masood said.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
RSS